Children's use of information
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Children's use of information is an issue in ethics and child development. Information is learned from many different sources and source monitoring (see also source-monitoring error) is important in understanding how people use information and decide which information is credible.
Consider the example of a parent whose child has been diagnosed with hyperactivity; the parent searches the internet for information, reads books, participates in an online chat room with other parents in the same situation, and consults various medical professionals. Some of these sources will be credible (contain reliable information), and others will not. To be well-informed, the parent must filter information according to the reliability of the source. Children learn about the world in much the same way. They are told things by numerous people (e.g., teachers, parents, siblings, and friends), see things on the television or internet, and read information in books. Can children be effective consumers of information? At what age are they able to do this? How do they deal with ambiguous resources? This page will detail answers to those questions (and others) by drawing on peer-reviewed scientific research.
The development of source monitoring
Young children have more difficulty with understanding and recalling the sources of information than adults do.<ref name="Lindsay, D. S. 1991">Lindsay, D. S.; Johnson, M. K.; Kwon, P. (1991). "Developmental changes in memory source monitoring". Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 52 (3): 297–318. doi:10.1016/0022-0965(91)90065-z. PMID 1770330.</ref> Although episodic memory improves throughout childhood, development in the area of source monitoring tends to occur between the ages of 3 and 8 years.<ref name = "Roberts 2002">Roberts, K. P. (2002). "Children's ability to distinguish between memories from multiple sources: Implications for the quality and accuracy of eyewitness statements". Developmental Review. 22 (3): 403–435. doi:10.1016/S0273-2297(02)00005-9. S2CID 59933611.</ref> 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.<ref>Gopnik, A.; Graf, P. (1988). "Knowing how you know: Young children's ability to identify and remember the sources of their beliefs". Child Development. 59 (5): 1366–1371. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1988.tb01505.x.</ref> The development of source monitoring is gradual, and children achieve and display competency in certain aspects of source monitoring before others.<ref name = "Roberts 2002"/> 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.<ref name="Lindsay, D. S. 1991"/> 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.<ref>Brainerd, C. J.; Reyna, V. F. (1990). "Gist is the grist: Fuzzy-trace theory and the new intuitionism". Developmental Review. 10 (1): 3–47. doi:10.1016/0273-2297(90)90003-m.</ref> 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.<ref name="welch-ross1997"/> 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.<ref>Farrar, M. J., & Goodman, G. S. (1990). Developmental differences in the relation between scripts and episodic memory: Do they exist? In Knowing and remembering in young children, Fivush, Robyn, Hudson, Judith A. eds., (pp. 30-64). Cambridge University Press, New York, NY</ref> 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.<ref>Ratner, H. H.; Foley, M. A. (1996). "A unifying framework for the development of children's activity memory". Advances in Child Development and Behavior. 25: 33–105. doi:10.1016/S0065-2407(08)60050-6. ISBN 9780120097258. PMID 7847174.</ref> 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.<ref>Foley, M. A.; Ratner, H. H. (1998). "Distinguishing between memories for thoughts and deeds: The role of prospective processing in children's source monitoring". British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 16 (4): 465–484. doi:10.1111/j.2044-835x.1998.tb00765.x.</ref> The person-based perspective is social-cognitive in nature (more so 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.<ref>Welch-Ross, M. (2000). A mental-state reasoning model of suggestibility and memory source monitoring. In Children's source monitoring, Roberts, Kim P., Blades, Mark, eds., (pp. 227-255). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, Mahwah, NJ</ref> 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.<ref>Bright-Paul, A.; Jarrold, C.; Wright, D. B. (2008). "Theory of mind development influences suggestibility and source monitoring". Developmental Psychology. 44 (4): 1055–1068. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.44.4.1055. PMID 18605834.</ref> 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.<ref name = "O'Neill 1992">O'Neill, D. K.; Astington, J. W.; Flavell, J. H. (1992). "Young children's understanding of the role that sensory experiences play in knowledge acquisition". Child Development. 63 (2): 474–490. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1992.tb01641.x. PMID 1611948.</ref>
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.<ref name = "O'Neill 1992"/><ref name = "Wimmer 1988">Wimmer, H.; Hogrefe; Perner, J. (1988). "Children's understanding of informational access as source of knowledge". Child Development. 59 (2): 386–396. doi:10.2307/1130318. JSTOR 1130318.</ref>
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?").<ref name = "Wimmer 1988"/> 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.<ref name = "Wimmer 1988"/> 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.<ref name = "Wimmer 1988"/><ref>Pratt, C.; Bryant, P. (1990). "Young children understand that looking leads to knowing (so long as they are looking into a single barrel)". Child Development. 61 (4): 973–982. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1990.tb02835.x. PMID 2209200.</ref>
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).<ref name = "O'Neill 1992"/><ref name = "Waters 2012">Waters, G. M.; Beck, S. R. (2012). "How should we question young children's understanding of aspectuality?". The British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 30 (3): 376–392. doi:10.1111/j.2044-835X.2011.02044.x. PMID 22882369.</ref> 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).<ref name = "Fitneva 2013">Fitneva, S. A.; Lam, N. H. L.; Dunfield, K. A. (2013). "The development of children's information gathering: To look or to ask?". Developmental Psychology. 49 (3): 533–542. doi:10.1037/a0031326. hdl:21.11116/0000-0002-5F86-D. PMID 23316769.</ref> 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.<ref name = "Fitneva 2013"/>
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.<ref name = "Fitneva 2013"/>
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).<ref name = "O'Neill 1992"/><ref name = "Robinson 2008">Robinson, E. J.; Haigh, S. N.; Pendle, J. E. C. (2008). "Children's working understanding of the knowledge gained from seeing and feeling" (PDF). Developmental Science. 11 (2): 299–305. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00676.x. PMID 18333983.</ref> 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.<ref name = "Robinson 2008"/> In this case, 3 and 4 year-olds overestimate the knowledge that could be gained through feeling the object.<ref name = "O'Neill 1992"/> 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.<ref name = "Waters 2012"/><ref>Doherty, M. J.; Perner, J. (1998). "Metalinguistic awareness and theory of mind: Just two words for the same thing?". Cognitive Development. 13 (3): 279–305. doi:10.1016/s0885-2014(98)90012-0.</ref><ref>Perner, J.; Rendl, B; Garnham, A. (2007). "Objects of desire, thought, and reality: Problems of anchoring discourse referents in development". Mind & Language. 22 (5): 475–513. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00317.x.</ref> There are language effects on knowledge access through 3 different question types:<ref name = "Waters 2012" />
- Identity: "Find out which one is in the tunnel",
- Dimension: "Find out what colour the one in the tunnel is"
- 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.<ref name = "Waters 2012"/> 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.
Judging the credibility of sources and understanding of trust
Much of people's knowledge about the world is not obtained from direct experience, but indirectly from what other people or sources tell them. With widespread use of the internet people have access to nearly unlimited sources of information. Some of that information might be conflicting, and different sources of information vary in their accuracy and credibility. People can also deliberately deceive, be misunderstood, or be mistaken.<ref name="Nurmsoo2009">Nurmsoo, E.; Robinson, E. J. (2009). "Children's trust in previously inaccurate informants who were well or poorly informed: When past errors can be excused" (PDF). Child Development. 80 (1): 23–27. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01243.x. PMID 19236390.</ref> It is important that people develop the necessary skills to assess the accuracy of what they are being told.
Adults' credibility judgments
Adults make credibility judgments based on two factors: expertise and trustworthiness. For example, we might trust information from published research articles more than information from blogs because we know that anyone can write a blog, but scientists (experts) who write peer-reviewed articles are highly trained. With regards to trustworthiness, adults are less likely to believe someone who they think is trying to deceive them, and they take into account the intentions of the information-provider. For example, if someone's intention is to sell you something, you might be more skeptical of the accuracy of the information they provide because their motives cause you to question their honesty. Adults can effectively use these cues to make judgments about the credibility of different sources, but whether children can also do so is an important area for research.
Children's ability to make credibility judgments
Even very young children show an early sensitivity to issues of source credibility. By the age of 4, children show similar patterns to adults in a preference for perception over testimony; that is, they would rather see something with their own eyes than be told about it. Children also feel more confident in their knowledge when they have directly perceived it than if they have been told by someone else, even if the speaker is well informed.<ref name="Robinson2008">Robinson, E. J.; Haigh, S. N.; Nurmsoo, E. (2008). "Children's working understanding of knowledge sources: Confidence in knowledge gained from testimony" (PDF). Cognitive Development. 23: 105–118. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2007.05.001.</ref> However, children are not always able to directly perceive information, and they learn much of what they know from others. Some people are more credible sources of information than others, so children must actively evaluate information and decide whether or not to believe it. There are many factors or cues that children, by the age of 4, take into consideration when making judgements about whether or not to trust what a person says. For instance, knowledge and experience, traits, motivations, age, and reasoning or support.
Credibility judgments based on knowledge and experience
Young children have a reputation for credulity, or believing something without having any proof that it is true. Young children often trust what adults tell them, especially when they have no prior knowledge or expectations about the topic of the testimony.<ref>Jaswal, V. K.; Carrington Croft, A.; Setia, A. R.; Cole, C. A. (2010). "Young children have a specific, highly robust bias to trust testimony". Psychological Science. 21 (10): 1541–1547. doi:10.1177/0956797610383438. PMC 3507998. PMID 20855905.</ref> Because children tend to interact with adults who are more knowledgeable than themselves, if they have no reason to believe otherwise, they will trust what adults tell them. In particular, 3 year-olds tendency to believe others is based on a selective bias to trust what people tell them. This selective trust is adaptive in the early years as they are learning language and their way around the world.<ref>Baier, A (1986). "Trust and anti-trust". Ethics. 96 (2): 231–260. doi:10.1086/292745. S2CID 159454549.</ref>
Children have difficulty disregarding information provided to them, even if the source has been unreliable in the past. 3 year-olds will often continue to believe what a person tells them even after being repeatedly deceived by that person, but 4 year-olds are far better able to disregard this unreliable information.<ref>Mascaro, O.; Sperber, D. (2009). "The moral, epistemic, and mind- reading components of children's vigilance towards deception". Cognition. 112 (3): 367–380. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.05.012. PMID 19540473. S2CID 7087125.</ref> Three-year-olds are better at making trust judgments when they are able to choose between two sources of knowledge, rather than deciding whether or not to believe a single person, and in this situation they are often able to choose the more reliable of two speakers.<ref name="Lane2013">Lane, J. D.; Wellman, H. M.; Gelman, S. A. (2013). "Informants' traits weigh heavily in young children's trust in testimony and in their epistemic inferences". Child Development. 84 (4): 1253–1268. doi:10.1111/cdev.12029. PMC 3601569. PMID 23240893.</ref> By age 4, young children take an informant's knowledge, expertise, and reliability into account in order to avoid learning from unreliable or problematic sources.<ref name="Birch2008">Birch, S. A. J.; Vauthier, S. A.; Bloom, P. (2008). "Three- and four-year-olds spontaneously use others' past performance to guide their learning". Cognition. 107 (3): 1018–1034. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2007.12.008. PMID 18295193. S2CID 6163343.</ref> They believe statements made by knowledgeable speakers more than ignorant speakers, before they can explicitly answer questions about who has access to knowledge.<ref name="Robinson1999">Robinson, E. J.; Champion, H.; Mitchell, P. (1999). "Children's ability to infer utterance veracity from speaker informedness". Developmental Psychology. 35 (2): 535–546. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.35.2.535. PMID 10082024.</ref> They also prefer to seek information from sources who have been knowledgeable in the past. 4 year-olds can spontaneously use others' past performance to guide their learning.<ref>Sabbagh, M. A.; Baldwin, D. A. (2001). "Learning words from knowledgeable versus ignorant speakers: Links between preschoolers' theory of mind and semantic development". Child Development. 72 (4): 1054–1070. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00334. PMID 11480934.</ref>
Credibility judgments based on traits and motivation
Almost all human institutions (e.g., family, community, business, government) are built on a foundation of trust.<ref name="Xu2013">Xu, F.; Evans, A. D.; Li, C.; Li, Q.; Heyman, G.; Lee, K. (2013). "The role of honesty and benevolence in children's judgments of trustworthiness". International Journal of Behavioral Development. 37 (3): 257–265. doi:10.1177/0165025413479861. S2CID 143930568.</ref> There are many factors that influence children's trust in people and one of the most important is honesty.<ref>Bacon, F. (1999). Selected philosophical works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.</ref> There are various schools of philosophical thought that posits honesty to be morally right and lying to be morally wrong. On one end of the continuum, philosophers like Bok,<ref>Bok, S. (1978). Lying: Moral choice in public and private life. New York, NY: Random House.</ref> Kant,<ref>Kant, I. (1949). On a supposed right to lie from altruistic motives. In L.W. Beck (Ed.), Critical of practical reason and other writings (pp.346–350). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.</ref> and St. Augustine<ref>Augustine, St. (1952). Treaties on various issues. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.</ref> hold a deontological view that focuses on intrinsic duties relating to the treatment of others. In other words, telling the truth is intrinsically right and lying is intrinsically wrong. On the other end of the continuum is the utilitarian view that emphasizes the greater good, specifically with respect to the outcome of one's act. Therefore, lying and its moral implications are context dependent.<ref>see for example, Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</ref> In some situations, such as when being polite to spare another person's feelings, making a "prosocial lie" or deliberate false statement are endorsed.
Children consider motivation, as well as traits, when deciding whom to seek information from and whom to believe. In both Eastern and Western cultures, both adults and children adhere to the utilitarian perspective when giving moral evaluations of truths and lies in different social situations.<ref>See; Fu, G.; Evans, A. D.; Wang, L.; Lee, K. (2008). "Lying in the name of collective good: A developmental study". Developmental Science. 11 (4): 495–503. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00695.x. PMC 2570108. PMID 18576957.</ref> In terms of people's characteristics, children tend to place trust in people who are honest, smart, or kind over people who are dishonest, not smart, or not kind.<ref name="Lane2013" /> However, they also consider a person's intent or motivation. From age 7, children consider both honesty and benevolence when making trust judgments about other people, and older children are more likely to trust people who tell prosocial lies (to avoid hurting another person's feelings or to help another person) than young children.<ref name="Xu2013" /> For younger children, honesty is more important than a person's intention. As children get older, they increasingly attend to motivation as a key factor. The relationship between telling the truth and trusting a person is stable, but when it comes to lying, children consider the motivation of the speaker when deciding whether or not to trust them.
Credibility judgments based on age and reliability
Children evaluate the credibility of a speaker by evaluating how reliable that person has been in the past and can make predictions about a speaker based on their age.<ref name="Jaswal2006">Jaswal, V. K.; Neely, L. A. (2006). "Adults don't always know best: Preschoolers use past reliability over age when learning new words". Psychological Science. 17 (9): 757–758. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01778.x. PMID 16984291. S2CID 41301338.</ref> Children as young as 3 years-old prefer to trust an unfamiliar adult rather than an unfamiliar child.<ref>Taylor, M.; Cartwright, B.S.; Bowden, T. (1991). "Perspective taking and theory of mind: Do children predict interpretive diversity as a function of differences in observers' knowledge?". Child Development. 62 (6): 1334–1351. doi:10.2307/1130810. JSTOR 1130810. PMID 1786719.</ref> When considering both age and reliability, age is often the primary cue used to determine another's credibility. For example, 3 and 4 year-olds found adults to be more trustworthy than peers, unless the peer demonstrated greater reliability (i.e., adult incorrectly mislabelled objects, whereas peer correctly labelled them).<ref name="Jaswal2006" /> Children also consider both the prior history of accuracy and the level of perceptual access the speaker has when they provide information. Young children spontaneously keep track of the prior history of a person's accuracy or inaccuracy (reliability) and prefer to learn from someone with a good track record.<ref name="Birch2008" /> Children commonly interpret the speaker's history of inaccuracy as a lasting trait and so the speaker is considered an unreliable informant, at least within the domain they have been wrong about. However, under certain conditions, children may excuse a person's past inaccuracy and later trust that person for information. If a speaker has limited information (e.g., lack of perceptual access) in making a claim – for example, inaccurately identifying a toy while blindfolded – then children as young as 3 years-old appropriately excuse their past inaccuracy especially when they are later well-informed.<ref name="Nurmsoo2009" /> On the other hand, if a speaker has full access to information while making an inaccurate claim, children continue to regard him/her as unreliable.
Credibility judgments based on reasoning or support
Young children appreciate that people generally think and act sensibly when reasons are present, and they can evaluate a claim by assessing the quality of the reasoning provided.<ref>Wellman, H. M.; Bartsch, K. (1988). "Young children's reasoning about beliefs". Cognition. 30 (3): 239–277. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(88)90021-2. hdl:2027.42/27034. PMID 3215003. S2CID 37767773.</ref> Thus, children create an epistemic profile of a person based on the quality of the reasons they offer when making a claim.<ref name="Koenig2012">Koenig, M. A. (2012). "Beyond semantic accuracy: Preschoolers evaluate a speaker's reasons". Child Development. 83 (3): 1051–1063. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01742.x. PMID 22417290.</ref> As young as 3 years-old, children understand the difference between weak versus strong reasoning to support a statement. Children are more likely to trust someone when strong support is provided through: reliable testimony ("My teacher told me there's a book in the bag. I think that there's a book"), looking ("Before I came here, I looked and saw a ball in the bag. I think there's a ball in there"), and inference ("It's a backpack. Backpack holds books. I think there's a book in there").<ref name="Koenig2012" /> On the other hand, desire ("I like crayons. I want there to be crayons in the bag. I think that there are crayons in there"), pretense ("I like to pretend. I'm going to pretend that there's a sandwich in the bag. I think there's a sandwich in there"), and guessing ("I don't know. I'm going to guess that there's a toy in the bag") are not viewed as strong support for a claim.<ref name="Koenig2012" /> Children recognize that the mental states that they and others may hold are not always reliable means for drawing specific conclusions. 3 and 4 year-olds can also choose the more reasonable of two people and continue to seek, as well as, accept new information from the more credible person (the one who had better reasons in the past).<ref name="Koenig2012" />
Children's development of distrust
People are not always reliable in their provision of information and it is important to be able to differentiate between good sources and bad sources. Assessing someone's reliability is based not only on the knowledgeability of the speaker, but their motives/intentions as well. People may not always be motivated to tell the truth; instead, they may potentially lie to promote their own interest,<ref>Heyman, G. D.; Legare, C. H. (2005). "Children's evaluation of sources of information about traits". Developmental Psychology. 41 (4): 636–647. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.41.4.636. PMID 16060810.</ref> or the interest of others.<ref>Heyman, G. D.; Sweet, M. A.; Lee, K. (2009). "Children's reasoning about lie-telling and truth-telling in politeness context". Social Development. 18 (3): 728–746. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2008.00495.x. PMC 2975356. PMID 21072132.</ref> At about the age they begin preschool, children become better at distinguishing between helpful and deceptive people. 3 year-olds are not able to identify who is trying to help or trick another person and accept advice from both helpers and trickers.<ref name="Vanderbilt2011">Vanderbilt, K. E.; Liu, D.; Heyman, G. D. (2011). "The development of distrust". Child Development. 82 (5): 1372–1380. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01629.x. PMC 3169730. PMID 21824130.</ref> On the other hand, 4 year-olds are more sceptical and could differentiate between helpers and trickers, but have no preference in choosing whom to accept advice from.<ref name="Vanderbilt2011" /> There may be a mismatch between knowledge and behaviour among 4 year-olds, in which they do not understand the implications of their knowledge or how to successfully apply it to their behaviour. 5 year-olds systematically preferred advice from helpers.<ref name="Vanderbilt2011" /> Ultimately theory of mind, or children's understanding of mental states, is related to selective trust in helpers (versus trickers). Beginning at 5 years-old, children use a person's prior history of deception to make reliability judgments about that person.<ref name="Vanderbilt2011" />
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.<ref name="schraw1994">Schraw, G.; Dennison, R. S. (1994). "Assessing metacognitive awareness". Contemporary Educational Psychology. 19 (4): 460–475. doi:10.1006/ceps.1994.1033.</ref><ref name ="brown1987">Brown, A. L. (1987). Metacognition, executive control, self-regulation, and other more mysterious mechanisms. In F. E. Weinert & R. H. Kluwe (Eds.), Metacognition, motivation, and understanding (pp. 65-116). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.</ref> 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.<ref name="schraw1994" /><ref name="brown1987" />
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.<ref name="beck2001" /><ref name="robinson1982">Robinson, E. J.; Robinson, W. P (1982). "Knowing when you don't know enough: Children's judgments about ambiguous information". Cognition. 12 (3): 267–280. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(82)90034-8. PMID 6891310. S2CID 35497435.</ref> 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.<ref name="beck2001" /><ref name="robinson1985">Robinson, E. J.; Whittaker, S. J. (1985). "Children's responses to ambiguous messages and their understanding of ambiguity". Developmental Psychology. 21 (3): 446–454. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.21.3.446.</ref> 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.<ref name="mitchell1992" /><ref name="moore1989">Moore, C. Bryant; Furrow, D. (1989). "Mental terms and the development of certainty". Child Development. 60 (1): 167–171. doi:10.2307/1131082. JSTOR 1131082.</ref>
Children's processing of ignorant and ambiguous statements
Ambiguous information is "a piece of information (word, message, or view) with multiple interpretations".<ref name="beck2008">Beck, S. R.; Robinson, E. J.; Freeth, M. M. (2008). "Children can resist making interpretations when uncertain?" (PDF). Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 99 (4): 252–270. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2007.06.002. PMID 17673251.</ref> Adults not only have the awareness to spot ambiguity, but they also have ways to deal with it. But young children cannot do the same. Typically, children cannot successfully deal with ambiguous statements until they are 6 or 7 years old. <ref name="beck2001">Beck, S. R.; Robinson, E. J. (2001). "Children's ability to make tentative interpretations of ambiguous messages". Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 79 (1): 95–114. doi:10.1006/jecp.2000.2583. PMID 11292313.</ref><ref name="singer1981">Singer, J. B.; Flavell, J. H. (1981). "Development of knowledge about communication: Children's evaluation of explicitly ambiguous messages". Child Development. 52 (4): 1211–1215. doi:10.2307/1129508. JSTOR 1129508. PMID 7318521.</ref> However, it seems in certain contexts with certain tasks, younger children also can somewhat deal with unclear or ambiguous statements. <ref name="mitchell1992">Mitchell, P . & Robinson, E. J. (1992). Children's understanding of the evidential connotation of 'know' in relation to overestimation of their own knowledge, Journal of Child Language, 19, 167-182.</ref>
The role of language and prior experience
Language can affect whether one can correctly deal with ambiguous statements. One can "know" someone in many different ways, for example, seeing them, talking to them, having a prior history with them, having a relationship with them, etc. This makes questions like "Do you know?" very complex and hard to answer. Clearer definitions of "to know" seem to help children to check their own knowledge better. Children as young as 4 years could make far more accurate statements about their actual knowledge when a question was phrased "Have you heard of" rather than "Do you know".<ref name="robinson1994">Robinson, E. J.; Mitchell, P. (1994). "Children's judgements of ignorance on the basis of absence of experience". British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 12 (2): 113–129. doi:10.1111/j.2044-835x.1994.tb00623.x.</ref> By the age of 6, children typically could accurately check their knowledge with very little impact on their future answers regardless of the language used. 4-5 year-old's, on the other hand, were so changeable that the phrase used affected their future answers. 4-5 year-old's were also less likely to overestimate their knowledge of a target person if the starting question was phrased "Have you heard of" rather than "Do you know".<ref name="robinson1994" /> Not only can responses from children be altered by the question’s phrasing, but they can also change their response when the question suggests they are not familiar with the person. 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 their before.<ref name="robinson1994" /> While experience is important, children tend not to over-rely on prior experiences and only use it when they've had enough experience that can help assess their knowledge.<ref name= "robinson1994" />
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.<ref name="beck2001" /> This strategy uses multiple pieces of information and has been seen in children as young as 15 months old.<ref name="ganea2007">Ganea, P. A.; Saylor, M. M. (2007). "Infants' use of shared linguistic information to clarify ambiguous requests". Child Development. 78 (2): 493–502. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01011.x. PMID 17381786.</ref> 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.<ref name="robinson1982" />
Delaying interpretation
Clarifying (Disambiguating)information is not always instantly available. In these situations, adults seem to delay interpretation and seek clarifying information when appropriate. Children find it harder to understand what actions they need to take to clarify than to identify an ambiguous situation that pops up. There are 2 different types of delay in interpreting ambiguous information: one that is intentional and one that is instinctual.<ref name="beck2008" /> The decision to delay interpretation and seek further information is a difficult one as it involves being aware that the information given at that point are not sufficient and knowing how to ask for the ones necessary for clarification. Children are typically failures in this process until the age of 7.<ref name="beck2001" /> However, when this explicit decision to delay is simplified, children aged 5 and up showed some ability in successfully choosing to delay their response.<ref name="beck2008" /> While the ability to intentionally delay 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.<ref name="beck2008" /> 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.<ref name="beck2008" /> 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.<ref name="robinson2001">Robinson, E. J.; Apperly, I. A. (2001). "Children's difficulties with partial representations in ambiguous messages and referentially opaque contexts". Cognitive Development. 16: 595–615. doi:10.1016/s0885-2014(00)00035-6.</ref> 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.<ref name="robinson2001" /> 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.<ref name="robinson2001" />
Physical and epistemic uncertainty
Children can change their interpretation of information based on the context in which the interpretation is made.<ref name="robinson2006">Robinson, E. J.; Rowley, M. G.; Beck, S. R.; Carroll, D. J.; Apperly, I. A. (2006). "Children's sensitivity to their own relative ignorance: Handling of possibilities under epistemic and physical uncertainty" (PDF). Child Development. 77 (6): 1642–1655. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00964.x. PMID 17107451.</ref> 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.<ref name="beck2011">Beck; McColgan, K. L. T.; Robinson, E. J.; Rowley, M. G. (2011). "Imagining what might be: Why children underestimate uncertainty" (PDF). Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 110 (4): 603–610. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2011.06.010. PMID 21798553.</ref> Similarly, adults also prefer to make predictions or guess in epistemic uncertainty.<ref name="robinson2009">Robinson, E. J.; Pendle, J.; Rowley, M. G.; Beck, S. R.; McColgan, K. L. T. (2009). "Guessing imagined and live chance events: Adults behave like children with live events" (PDF). British Journal of Psychology. 100 (4): 645–659. doi:10.1348/000712608x386810. PMID 19079952.</ref>
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.<ref>Nelson, T.O., & Narens, L. (1994). Why investigate metacognition? In J. Metcalife &A.P. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition. Knowing about knowing (pp. 1–25). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.</ref> Adults' accuracy of feeling-of-knowing judgments is well above chance but not nearly perfect.<ref>Koriat, A (1993). "How do we know that we know? The accessibility model of the feeling of knowing". Psychological Review. 100 (4): 609–639. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.100.4.609. PMID 8255951.</ref> 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).<ref>Lockl, K.; Schneider, W. (2002). "Developmental trends in children's feeling-of-knowing judgments". International Journal of Behavioral Development. 26 (4): 327–333. doi:10.1080/01650250143000210. S2CID 143958809.</ref> 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.<ref name="robinson1994" />
Forensic applications
Children are highly susceptible to a "suggestibility effect", producing "false memories" and/or "incorrect, post-event information" (see misinformation effect) when asked to engage in memory recall.<ref name="welch-ross1997">Welch-Ross, M. K.; Diecidue, K.; Miller, S. A. (1997). "Young children's understanding of conflicting mental representation predicts suggestibility". Developmental Psychology. 33 (1): 43–53. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.33.1.43. PMID 9050389.</ref> This has important implications for forensic interviewing and child witness testimony.<ref name="goodman2007">Goodman, G.S.; Melinder, A. (2007). "Child witness research and forensic interviews of young children: A review". Legal and Criminological Psychology. 12: 1–19. doi:10.1348/135532506x156620.</ref> Consider the prominent case of Kelly Michael's (see Wee Care Nursery School abuse trial), where improper interviewing techniques lead to a miscarriage of justice. In order to develop reliable and age-appropriate instruments for interviewing children, it is imperative to consider their cognitive development, verbal and mental abilities.<ref name="welch-ross1997" /><ref name="goodman2007" />
Forensic interviews and techniques
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:
- Eliciting "false allegations" through leading and suggestive questions<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Determining the amount of detail a child may disclose<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Prevent a child from disclosing<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Interviewer's gender may also impact the quality and details of disclosure. Children between the ages of 4 and 6 are more likely to disclose to an interviewer of the same gender.<ref name="cronch2006" />
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.<ref name="cronch2006" /> 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.<ref name="cronch2006" />
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<ref name="wood2000">Wood, J.; Garven, S. (2000). "How sexual abuse interviews go astray: Implications for prosecutors, police and child protection services". Child Maltreatment. 5 (2): 109–118. doi:10.1177/1077559500005002003. PMID 11232084. S2CID 26722045.</ref><ref name="cronch2006">Cronch, L. E.; Viljoen, J. L.; Hansen, D. J. (2006). "Forensic interviewing in child sexual abuse cases: Current techniques and future directions". Aggression and Violent Behavior. 11 (3): 195–207. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2005.07.009. S2CID 34223151.</ref>
Improper interviewing includes forensic techniques that are considered to be "risky and ineffective".<ref name="cronch2006" /> 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:<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Use of reinforcement: If an interviewer utilizes rewards and punishments to coerce disclosure<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Social influence: If an interviewer informs a child of another child's disclosure or recollection<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Asking suggestive or leading questions: This can occur when an interviewer provides a child with information that has not been previously known<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Removing the child from direct experience: For example, asking a child "what might have happened"<ref name="cronch2006" />
Clumsy interviewing involves interviews that fail to include best practices and recommended techniques.<ref name="cronch2006" /> 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.<ref name="cronch2006" />
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.<ref name="cronch2006" />
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".<ref name="goodman2007" />
Specifically, this method utilizes four major techniques:<ref name="goodman2007" />
- Report everything: i.e., "tell me everything you remember"<ref name="goodman2007" />
- Context reinstatement: i.e., "think back to where you were at the time"<ref name="goodman2007" />
- 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"<ref name="goodman2007" />
- Change perspective: i.e., "what would the perpetrator have seen and heard?"<ref name="goodman2007" />
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.<ref name="goodman2007" /><ref name="cronch2006" /><ref name="lamb2007">Lamb, M. E.; Orbach, Y.; Hershkowitz, I.; Esplin, P. W.; Horowitz, D. (2007). "A structured forensic interview protocol improves the quality and informativeness of investigative interviews with children: A review of research using the NICHD Investigative Protocol". Child Abuse & Neglect. 31 (11–12): 1201–1231. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2007.03.021. PMC 2180422. PMID 18023872.</ref>
It uses the following techniques:<ref name="goodman2007" /><ref name="lamb2007" />
- Introductory phase: This is necessary for rapport building<ref name="goodman2007" />
- Practice in free-recall: "Tell me about your last birthday party"<ref name="goodman2007" />
- Information about the ground rules: "It's okay to say "I don't know""<ref name="goodman2007" />
- Open-ended questions: "Tell me why you came to talk to me"<ref name="goodman2007" />
Stepwise interview utilizes open-ended questions through a "funnel-like strategy".<ref name="goodman2007" /> It is primarily used by legal professionals, and is most often used in North America.<ref name="goodman2007" /> This interview begins with open-ended questions and/or free recall and slowly incorporates more focused and detailed questions.<ref name="goodman2007" />
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.<ref name="cronch2006" /> This also enhances the interviewer's ability to be non-judgmental and objective.<ref name="cronch2006" />
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.<ref name="cronch2006" /> The interviewer is encouraged to ask questions with general examples, such as "tell me a lie about this chair".<ref name="cronch2006" /> This strategy has been proven to result in a less misinformed child testimony.<ref name="cronch2006" />
Touch survey was developed on the basis that "touch falls on a continuum", and is beneficial to screen for child abuse.<ref name="cronch2006" /> It includes questions surrounding the child's experiences with touch (e.g., kissing, hugging, hitting), including where they have been touched and by whom.<ref name="cronch2006" /> This tool might be more useful when used in conjunction with other forensic strategies.<ref name="cronch2006" />
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:<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Interviews should be conducted in a safe, child-friendly environment.<ref name="cronch2006" />
- A child's age should be considered when being interviewed, and practices should be modified accordingly.<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Structured interview protocol should always be utilized.<ref name="cronch2006" />
- Interviewers should engage in professional training when possible.<ref name="cronch2006" />
- 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").<ref name="cronch2006" />
