Citation

Zajac R, Hayne H. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 2006; 20(1): 3-16.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/acp.1169

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

We present data suggesting that the negative effect of cross-examination style questioning on children's accuracy is not limited to young children. Using an identical paradigm to that used with 5- and 6-year-olds by Zajac and Hayne in 2003, we examined the effect of cross-examination style questioning on 9- and 10-year-olds' accounts of a prior staged event. Like younger children, 9- and 10-year-old children made frequent changes to their original responses during cross-examination style questioning. Although 9- and 10-year-old children were more likely to change incorrect responses than correct ones, they nonetheless changed over 40% of their correct responses, and cross-examination still exerted a significant negative effect on their overall accuracy levels. The present findings suggest that although older children appear to be somewhat less vulnerable to cross-examination style questioning, they are still not immune to the negative effects of this process on the accuracy of their reports. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Language: en