Judges' Perceptions of Child Witnesses

Canadian researchers have reported results from two related studies that bear on: (1) the ability of Canadian judges to detect lying children and (2) Canadian judges' perceptions of the credibility of children.  Here's an article from Science Daily, and here's an excerpt:

The research showed that social workers and other professionals working in child protection, and judges correctly identify children who are lying at only slightly above chance levels after watching mock interviews. Judges perform comparably to other justice system officials and significantly better than law students.

While the mock interviews don't replicate the judge's courtroom experience, "the results show that judges are not human lie detectors," says Bala.

. . .

The survey asked Canadian judges about their perceptions of child and adult witnesses on such issues as suggestibility, leading questions, memory and perceptions of honesty in child witnesses. It found that children are perceived as:

• more susceptible to suggestibility during pre-court interviews
• more influenced by leading questions
• less likely than adults to intentionally set out to deceive during court testimony.

Comments

[murky]

I advocate not referencing the stuff on Science Daily as "articles" or "news" or even "stories." These are press releases. More often than not they're written by somebody who doesn't understand the topic, works in a university PR office and is seeking to call attention to the work by making it sound as important and impressive as possible. My understanding is that any release that any university (and perhaps any company) puts out gets a spot on Science Daily. It's not like reading the same words in the New York Times!

[murky]

BTW what's a "mock interview"? How does the performance of child liars differ between mock interviews and lying from the stand after swearing an oath on the Bible? I can't help thinking they lie better.

[Adam Kolber]

I believe that Science Daily publishes somewhat modified or summarized versions of press releases. I think you are right that readers should critically read press releases for the reasons you mention and ought to obtain the original research whenever relying on the material in any significant way. Of course, the same is probably true (albeit to a lesser degree) for summarized research in the New York Times.

I do appreciate and thank you for the comment and will rethink the way that I describe material from Science Daily.