Children's use of information

The Development of Source Monitoring

Young children have more difficulty with understanding and recalling the sources of information than adults do. Although episodic memory improves throughout childhood, development in the area of source monitoring tends to occur between the ages of 3 and 8 years. At 3 years, children who are able to immediately recognize the source of the information they obtain have difficulty recalling this information after a short delay. The development of source monitoring is gradual, and children achieve and display competency in certain aspects of source monitoring before others. The developmental trajectory of source monitoring provides insight into what cognitive factors are necessary prerequisites. While there is no generally accepted unified theory for the development of source monitoring, five major theories contribute ideas about how source monitoring develops in children: Source Monitoring Theory, Fuzzy-trace Theory, Schema Theory, Person-based Perspective, and the Mental-state Reasoning Model.

Source Monitoring Theory

According to Source Monitoring Theory, the source of information is attributed through a decision-making process, where source is inferred based on various characteristics inherent in the memory itself. This means that the sources are not directly encoded, but rather reconstructed, when information is recalled. This decision-making process can either be through automatic, unconscious processing, or through heightened demanding and systematic processing that may require reasoning, and the retrieval of supporting memories. This theory implicates the development of episodic memory and memory strategies in the development of source monitoring more generally.

Fuzzy-Trace Theory

Fuzzy-Trace Theory hypothesizes that the source-monitoring errors that children make are caused by problems with memory storage and retrieval. Memories are simultaneously stored in two different formats: the "gist" level (extracted from the experience), and the "verbatim" representation (information in exact detail). It is proposed that the source of information is encoded in memory as a verbatim detail. Memories for verbatim details decay more quickly over time than gist representations, and young children demonstrate faster decay of verbatim information than older children or adults. Younger children are more likely to experience memory intrusions due to weaker memory traces, which leads to a susceptibility to misleading information replacing memory traces from a previous event. For this reason, developmental changes in episodic memory performance are viewed as the driving factor in source monitoring development.

Schema Theory

Schema Theory, as a derivative of Script Theory, states that after repeated exposure to similar events, individuals form a general representation of what typically happens. Some details are the same at each instance of repeated events, and others can vary from instance to instance. In the script for what usually happens, there is a "slot" for each variable detail and the detail for a particular time is chosen from a list of possible variations. If source information is encoded as a slot, errors in source monitoring can be the result of incorrect retrieval of a specific detail. This framework allows for the storage of a large amount of detailed information about specific events, however is very cognitively demanding for children. Because of their limited cognitive resources, young children require more experience with repeated events in order to generate a schema. Details that vary from instance to instance can be lost, and children rely instead on the generalized event representation when attempting to recall a particular instance. The main assumption is that the development of source monitoring depends on an increase in cognitive processing capacity.

Person-Based Perspective

Person-Based Perspective emphasizes prospective processes. Prospective processes relate actions to one another through operations such as sequencing and planning. These processes are affected by the perspective taken (self vs. other) or the goals and meaning to the individual. The meaning attached to the goal of an action can interfere with source monitoring by removing attention from the source details. The Person-based Perspective is social-cognitive in nature than other theories of source monitoring, and assumes that development is reliant on socialization and theory of mind development.

Mental-State Reasoning Model

The Mental-State Reasoning Model highlights possible mechanisms behind young children’s suggestibility. Children who have difficulty with reasoning about conflicting mental representations are likely to overwrite their original memories with misinformation because they cannot reconcile two contradicting views of what actually occurred. Source monitoring and the understanding of knowledge states, play a key role in resisting suggestions. The development of source monitoring is presumed to be based on better understanding of knowledge states, metacognition and theory of mind.

The Origins of Knowledge

Being aware of how we have acquired information is particularly difficult for young children (specifically 3 to 5 year-olds). After feeling a soft ball, 3 and 4 year-olds can correctly identify whether they know the ball is soft or hard, but cannot always say how they know. Perhaps it is because they felt the ball, saw the ball, or were told it was soft. The ability to recognize the origin of their knowledge requires the understanding of how knowledge is acquired.

Knowledge and Justification

When asked knowledge questions ("Do you know what is in the box?") then justification questions ("How do [or why don't] you know what is in the box?"), children who can correctly answer are able to reflect on knowledge that they have gained from a particular source and should be able to identify the source of information.

3 and 4 year-olds are better at answering these questions when the questions refer to themselves in comparison to referring to another person. When these children are shown a hidden object they can correctly report their perceptual access (responding correctly to “Did you look into the box?”) and their knowledge access of what is in the box (responding correctly to “Do you know [not know] what is in the box?”. Despite their ability to answer correctly when referring to the self, 3 and 4 year-olds have difficulty responding to the “other's” knowledge, where they deny the “other” has the knowledge. 3-4 year-olds can correctly identify that the other person has in fact looked in a box, but when asked “Does [other] know what is in the box?” the child will deny that the other person knows what is in the box. The key assumption is then that although children are aware that perceptual access is needed, they are unable to acknowledge that the knowledge was gained from perceptual access.

Gaining Knowledge Through Looking, Touching, and Asking

Gaining knowledge is knowing how to acquire new information. The ability to recognize how specific knowledge can be gained by perceptual access (looking, feeling or smelling) is the understanding of Aspectuality. Aspectuality understanding is the awareness that an object is made up of many different properties (colour, weight, odour), which can be determined by a specific perceptual action (looking, feeling, smelling). Identifying the colour of a car outside the window could involve asking someone for the information or looking out the window. In most cases, adults would acquire this knowledge from simply looking out the window. However, not all information can be gained in this manner. If you were asked to find out how old the driver of the car is, simply looking would not provide accurate information; you would have to ask. These two situations are dependent on whether the information being sought out is visible or invisible (respectively). Knowledge development depends on children’s ability to efficiently pursue their informational goal. Children do not always make the most effective or efficient decision when acquiring new information.

Age Differences. 6 year-olds are able to distinguish when gaining knowledge requires looking (the information is visible) or when gaining knowledge requires asking (the information is invisible). However, 4 year-olds do not perform as consistently. Even with an expert present, 4 year-olds will overestimate the knowledge they can gain through looking. However, when the information to be gained is regarding a group of friends and the expert is a friend of the group, 4 year-olds tend to overestimate knowledge acquisition through asking.

When given access to pairs of objects, which could either be identified by seeing (identical objects: different in colour) or by touch/feeling (identical objects: 1 soft, 1 hard), children perform relatively well, generally recognizing when they have adequate information and when they have inadequate information (i.e., knowing the object is blue after seeing it or knowing the object is soft after feeling it). But, when young children are not given access (of seeing or feeling), they have difficulty predicting and identifying which mode of access would allow them to identify the object. In this case, 3 and 4 year-olds overestimate the knowledge that could be gained through feeling the object. 3 to 4 year-olds may not understand the perceptual access needed to acquire the specific knowledge.

Language and Question Phrasing

Waters and Beck (2012) state “understanding the link between perceptual access and consequent information (knowledge access) is a crucial component in the development of theory of mind”. In a typical adult population, change in the phrasing of a particular question would not affect the understanding of what action needs to occur. “What colour is the bike that is outside?” or “Is the bike red?” should not change the action of looking to gain the needed information. However, children’s performance is susceptible to this type of question phrasing. There are language effects on knowledge access through 3 different question types:

1. Identity: "Find out which one is in the tunnel",
2. Dimension: "Find out what colour the one in the tunnel is"
3. Aspect: "Find out if the one in the tunnel is the red one or the blue one".

4 and 5 year-olds are more likely to respond correctly to aspect and dimension questions in comparison to identity questions. Aspect and dimension questions are more explicit, which may be why performance is better in these categories. Identity questions require more cognitive effort as one has to remember how the objects were similar and how they differed.

Metacognition

Metacognition is an ability that allows people to think about their own thinking process, and how to use their thinking process to help themselves learn better. Metacognition includes two separate abilities: 1) knowledge of cognition and 2) regulation of cognition. Knowledge of one’s thinking process is not enough to regulate an individual's behaviour, and are required to use specific strategies to help them regulate their behaviour.

Knowing You Don’t Know

An important skill children need to learn is being able to identify when a message is incomplete and they don’t have enough information to make an accurate interpretation. Being aware that an ambiguous situation has arisen is difficult for young children. Children accurately “know when they know”, but often overestimate when they don’t know. Children’s behaviour does not seem to match their verbal ability to acknowledge their “lack of knowledge.” Despite incorrectly stating that they “know” something, children are still capable of changing their response upon hearing contradicting information to an initial interpretation and/or event. Language plays an important role in children’s accuracy in assessing their own knowledge. For children to accurately “know what they know” it is important for them to understand the various meanings of the word “know” as well as language used to describe certainty and uncertainty.

Children's Judgments about Ignorant and Ambiguous Sources

Ambiguous information is “a piece of information (word, message, or view) with multiple interpretations.” In our daily lives we often come across ambiguous input when we don’t have all of the necessary information to make an accurate interpretation. Adults not only have the awareness to realize when ambiguity exists, but they also have strategies to deal with ambiguous input. Young children have difficulty with recognizing ambiguity and understanding how to handle it. Typically, it is not until the age of 6 or 7 that children have the ability to successfully deal with ambiguous input. However, it seems in certain contexts with certain tasks, younger children also display some ability to deal with ambiguous information.

The Role of Language and Prior Experience

Language can play an important role in the ability to correctly decipher ambiguous input. One can “know” someone in many different ways, for example, seeing them, talking to them, having a prior history with them, etc. This makes questions like “Do you know?” very complicated and difficult to respond to. More explicit definitions of “to know” seem to assist children in better assessing their own knowledge. Children as young as 4 years were able to make far more accurate statements about their actual knowledge when a question was phrased “Have you HEARD OF “ rather than “Do you KNOW”. By the age of 6, children are typically able to accurately assess their knowledge with very little impact on their future behaviours regardless of the language used. 4-5 year-old's, on the other hand, were so susceptible to change that the phrase used altered their response to future questions. 4-5 year-old's were also less likely to overestimate their knowledge of a target person if the initial question was phrased "Have you heard of" rather than “Do you know”. Not only can responses from children be altered by the phrasing of the question, but the suggestion of lack of prior experience with the target is enough for children to change their response. In a study where children were asked if they really knew who a specific person was (between 2 pictures of people they had never seen before), they were more accurate in assessing that they didn’t know when it was suggested that the target person had never been to the child’s city before. While experience is important, children tend not to over-rely on prior experiences and only use it when they’ve had significant experience that would actually assist them in assessing their knowledge.

Partial Information

Sometimes when confronted with ambiguous information, more than one piece of information is required to make and accurate interpretation. For example, in a study where children had to pick one of four pictures presented to them after hearing ambiguous information, they were capable of making tentative interpretations and then correctly changing their interpretations upon hearing contradicting, clarifying information. This strategy uses multiple pieces of information and has been seen in children as young as 15 months old. In situations where only partial information is available, young children make the best interpretation possible with the information given and go on to change this interpretation only when contradicting information emerges.

Delaying Interpretation

The presentation of clarifying information is not always immediately accessible. In these situations, adults seem to delay interpretation and seek clarifying information when appropriate. Even more difficult than acknowledging that an ambiguous situation has arisen, is children’s understanding in what actions they need to take for clarification. There are 2 different types of delay in interpreting ambiguous information: one that is intentional and one that is instinctual. The explicit decision to delay interpretation and seek further information is a difficult one as it involves being aware that the current information is not sufficient, and knowing how to acquire appropriate information necessary for clarification. Children are typically not successful in this process until the age of 7. However, when this explicit decision to delay is simplified, children aged 5 and up showed some ability in successfully choosing to delay their response. While the ability for intentionally delaying interpretation seems to be difficult, the ability to delay interpretation instinctively seems to be easier for young children. In one example, children were asked to stamp the correct snowman once they knew which one it was. Their knowledge of the correct snowman was based on a researcher slowly revealing the target snowman. The children’s cards contained snowmen that differed by some feature visible on the 2nd half of the snowman only and therefore the children were required to wait until the 2nd half of the snowman was revealed in order to accurately assess which snowman was the correct one. In this scenario focusing on instinct, children as young as 5 were able to accurately delay interpretation. Therefore, while it is difficult for children to explicitly demonstrate their awareness of an ambiguous situation and how to resolve it, they are implicitly able to handle situations in which delaying interpretation may be beneficial.

Referents and meaning

It is difficult for younger children to grasp the idea that objects can be referred to in different ways and that people can have partial knowledge of the different references (i.e. a "bouncy ball" might also be referred to as a "rubber sphere"). A child might know by looking that a toy is a toy truck, but they may not be aware that the toy truck is also a present. Referential opacity is the concept of whether or not referring to an object changes its meaning. If something is referentially transparent (substitution insensitive), altering the referent term does not alter the meaning, and something that is referentially opaque (substitution sensitive) means that altering the referent term would alter the meaning. An example of this is a study with a puppet named Heinz. There is a ball in a box and children are told that Heinz knows that there is a ball in the box but does not know that the ball is a present. Children are then asked substitution-insensitive questions (i.e. Does Heinz know the ball is a present? – asking, “Does Heinz know the rubber sphere is a present?” does not alter the meaning of the question) and substitution sensitive questions (i.e. Does Heinz know there’s a present in the box? – asking “Does Heinz know there is a rubber sphere in the box” does alter the meaning of the question). Regardless of age, substitution-insensitive questions seem to be easier than substitution-sensitive questions. The ability to correctly answer substitution-sensitive questions improves with age. The ability to answer these types of questions is closely related to effectively evaluating ambiguous messages. Success on substitution-insensitive questions is necessary but not sufficient for success on evaluation ambiguous messages. Alternatively, success on substitution-sensitive questions is necessary and sufficient for success at evaluating ambiguous messages.

Physical and Epistemic Uncertainty

Children can change their interpretation of information based on the context in which the interpretation is made. Robinson and colleagues (2006) studied children’s interpretation of information in two different: physical and epistemic uncertainty. Physical uncertainty occurs when an event has not yet happened, and therefore the outcome of that event has not been determined (i.e. the dice has not yet been rolled). Epistemic uncertainty occurs when an event has already occurred, but the child is not aware of the outcome of the event (i.e. the dice have been rolled, but the dice are hidden from the participant). 4 to 8 year old children have the ability to realize multiple possibilities for an event that has not yet occurred (physical uncertainty), however they do not seem to acknowledge that there are exactly the same possibilities for an event that has already happened when they don’t know the outcome (epistemic uncertainty). Under the conditions of epistemic uncertainty, children simply guess one of the possibilities. Beck and colleagues (2011) propose that this happens because it is much easier to imagine the outcome during epistemic uncertainty, basically knowing that there is only one outcome. Similarly, adults also prefer to make predictions or guess in epistemic uncertainty.

Feeling-of-Knowing (FOK)

Feeling-of-knowing occurs when people are unable to easily recall a memory or a fact, but they know that they learned it and are able to recognize it, such as in a multiple-choice test. Adults’ accuracy of feeling-of-knowing judgments is well above chance but not nearly perfect. It seems to be the same for children as well. Lockl and Schneider (2002) did not find any developmental trends in the accuracy of feeling-of-knowing judgments. Instead, similar to adults, children's accuracy of feeling-of knowing judgments was low, but still above chance for all age groups studied (grade 1 through grade 4). Getting a child to attend to this feeling-of-knowing (through language or prompting of prior experience) is one way to assist them in more accurately assessing their actual knowledge, allowing them to handle ambiguous situations at a much younger age.

Forensic applications

Children are highly susceptible to a "suggestibility effect", producing "false memories" (see false memory) and/or "incorrect, post-event information" (see misinformation effect) when asked to engage in memory recall. This has important implications for forensic interviewing and child witness testimony. Consider prominent cases such as that of Kelly Michael's (see Wee Care Nursery School abuse trial), where improper interviewing techniques can lead to serious consequences. In order to develop reliable and age-appropriate instruments for interviewing children, it is imperative to consider their cognitive development, verbal and mental abilities.

Factors that can impact disclosure

It is critical for a forensic interviewer to recognize their power during an interview, especially with a child witness. An interviewer can impact the course of a child's testimony in numerous ways, including:

The age of a child is also an important factor during interviewing. Younger children are more likely to provide shorter, less detailed accounts of an event in comparison to older children. Preschool children are more likely to disclose information in an "accidental way" through triggers and obvious cues, whereas older school children are more likely to make "intentional disclosures" based on the nature of the question they are asked.

Improper interviewing

There are varying techniques and extraneous factors that can influence the way a child discloses an event during child witness testimony (e.g., experiences of abuse by a parent or caregiver). There are two major types of barriers in forensic interviews: 1) improper interviewing and 2) clumsy interviewing

Improper interviewing includes forensic techniques that are considered to be "risky and ineffective". Each of the following techniques can create critically negative consequences in witness testimony and result in false allegations or the potential for a reduced conviction:

1. Use of reinforcement: If an interviewer utilizes rewards and punishments to coerce disclosure
2. Social influence: If an interviewer informs a child of another child's disclosure or recollection
3. Asking suggestive or leading questions: This can occur when an interviewer provides a child with information that has not been previously known
4. Removing the child from direct experience: For example, asking a child "what might have happened"

Clumsy interviewing involves interviews that fail to include best practices and recommended techniques. Interviewers who are not properly trained in forensic techniques can fail to follow structured interview guidelines and impact the outcome of a child's testimony and/or responses to questioning. This type of interviewing most often occurs when an interviewer lacks skill, forgets important procedures, and when there is a lack of necessary supervision.

In order to prevent improper forensic interviewing, numerous methods to reduce suggestibility and the misinformation effect have been proven effective, including: taping interviews, recording transcripts, ensuring supervision by a qualified professional, experience in working with children, training in forensic interviewing, and maintaining a comfortable, safe environment.

Types of interviewing

The cognitive interview utilizes cognitive theory as a focal point in its interview methodology. The cognitive interview, first developed in 1992 by researchers Fisher and Geiselman, was originally developed for adults and later modified for children. It utilizes two major perspectives from cognitive theory, including the "encoding specificity principle" and a "multi-component view of memory traces".

Specifically, this method utilizes four major techniques:

1. Report everything: i.e., "tell me everything you remember"
2. Context reinstatement: i.e., "think back to where you were at the time"
3. Reverse order: i.e., "now that you told me what happened, try to remember it again but this time starting at the end and recounting it in reverse chronological order"
4. Change perspective: i.e., "what would the perpetrator have seen and heard?"

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol developed an investigative protocol in 2000 to create a structured interview technique for children, specifically those of child sexual abuse.

It uses the following techniques:

1. Introductory phase: This is necessary for rapport building
2. Practice in free-recall: "Tell me about your last birthday party"
3. Information about the ground rules: "It's okay to say "I don't know""
4. Open-ended questions: "Tell me why you came to talk to me"

Stepwise interview utilizes open-ended questions through a "funnel-like strategy". It is primarily used by legal professionals, and is most often used in North America. This interview begins with open-ended questions and/or free recall and slowly incorporates more focused and detailed questions.

Allegation blind interviews stress that an interviewer should refrain from gathering information prior to an interview in order to reduce suggestibility and increase interviewer patience and attentiveness. This also enhances the interviewer's ability to be non-judgmental and objective.

Truth-lie discussions are most useful prior to commencing abuse-related questioning. This method allows the interviewer to create a baseline with the child about what the "truth" is and what a "lie" is. The interviewer is encouraged to ask questions with general examples, such as "tell me a lie about this chair". This strategy has been proven to result in a less misinformed child testimony.

Touch survey was developed on the basis that "touch falls on a continuum", and is beneficial to screen for child abuse. It includes questions surrounding the child's experiences with touch (e.g., kissing, hugging, hitting), including where they have been touched and by whom. This tool might be more useful when used in conjunction with other forensic strategies.

Recommendations for forensic interviewing

Although there are varying suggestions for structured forensic interviewing, experts provide context into best practices that can significantly reduce suggestibility, false memories and the misinformation effect:

1. Interviews should be conducted in a safe, child-friendly environment.
2. A child's age should be considered when being interviewed, and practices should be modified accordingly.
3. Structured interview protocol should always be utilized.
4. Interviewers should engage in professional training when possible.
5. Ground rules are essential for the beginning of the interview so that the child is aware of the type of responses they can provide (e.g., "I don't know").