University of Toledo Children's Memory Lab

Title: The Role of Contextual Pre-Interview Information in Child Sexual Abuse Forensic Interviews

Abstract

Forensic interviewers are expected to conduct unbiased investigations of crime. In the field of child sexual abuse, interviewers are often provided pre-interview information, increasing the risk of confirmation bias. The purpose of the present study is to investigate if pre-interview information pertaining to an alleged victim’s psychosocial history affects interviewers’ perceived credibility of the abuse allegation and interviewing style. Forensic interviewers will read a case summary in which pre-interview information is manipulated and conduct a mock forensic interview with the alleged victim. Interviewers will also provide subjective base rate estimates pertaining to behavioral indicators among abused and non-abused children. 

Kristina Todorovic and Christina Perez are collecting data at our local children’s museum (Imagination Station) as part of our new partnership.

Amy Capparelli successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Human Trafficking 101: What are the Outcomes of Human Trafficking Training?”

Abstract

Sex trafficking is a public health concern affecting approximately 4.5 million victims each year (International Labor Office, 2012). Despite the pervasiveness of sex trafficking, many people still hold false beliefs about the topic. Endorsement of false beliefs may lead to failure to identify victims and victim blaming (Cunningham & Cromer, 2014). A variety of educational trainings are available for professionals and community members to learn more about sex trafficking. The goals of such trainings are to reduce the endorsement of common myths about trafficking, and to increase identification of victims and reporting of suspicions to authorities. Trainings are provided in a variety of formats such as: facts-only (Polaris Project, 2012), stories-only (Equality Now, 2014), and combined facts and stories (Department of Homeland Security, 2018). However, there is little literature investigating the efficacy of sex trafficking educational trainings. In the current study, 268 participants were recruited nationwide using Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants completed several questionnaires online as a pre-training assessment. Variables assessed included: myth endorsement, self-reported and actual knowledge, identification of sex trafficking scenarios, reactions to sex trafficking scenarios, and willingness to engage in behaviors to combat trafficking. Next, participants were randomly assigned to complete one of three trainings (i.e., facts-only, stories-only, combination) to learn about sex trafficking. One week later, participants completed the same questionnaires online as a post-training assessment. Participants were most satisfied with the facts-only training. Participants showed improvements in myth endorsement, perceived and actual knowledge, identification of sex trafficking, risk sensitivity to sex trafficking scenarios, victim blaming, decision to report sex trafficking scenarios to authorities, perceptions of sex trafficking as a major problem, willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors to combat sex trafficking, and likelihood to engage in behaviors to intervene in a situation where sex trafficking was suspected. Explanations for the findings and directions for future research and practice are discussed.

Christina Perez, M.A. was selected as the 2018-2019 recipient fo the Department of Psychology’s Meritorious Thesis Award!

Her thesis examined how bilingual children perform when interviewed about a personally experienced event in comparison to their monolingual peers.

Kristina Todorovic presented a paper on children’s memory for previously seen people and objects as well as their memory for actions completed following a 10-month delay from the original staged event at the 2019 Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition in Cape Cod, MA.

Along with her graduate students Dr. London gave a two-day workshop at the University of Bonn, Germany on child interviewing. The workshop covered topics in reliability, credibility, competence, suggestive techniques to avoid, proper interviewing techniques, and how to review case files.