ADULTS UNDERSTANDING OF YOUNG CHILDRENS TESTIMONY

In many legal settings, judges and jurors must gain an understanding o f a crime solely on the basis of a child's testimony. In the present e xperiment, the authors examined adults' ability to understand young ch ildren's accounts of a past event. Adults were given a transcript of a n interview with a 3- and a 6-year-old child. In addition, half of the adults were given a summary of the event ( informed) and half were no t (naive). All adults were asked to extract as many details as possibl e From the transcripts. Naive adults were also asked to write a paragr aph summarizing what happened during the event. Overall, adults gleane d more information from transcripts of 6-year-olds than from transcrip ts of 3-year-olds. Furthermore, naive adults were more accurate than i nformed adults. The authors concluded that adults' ability to understa nd children's testimony increases as a function of the child's age and may be impaired rather than enhanced by additional sources of informa tion.