Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on Suggestibility In The Child Witness: Cognitive, Social, Motivational And Biological Factors. Have the paper e-mailed to you 24/7/365.
Essay / Research Paper Abstract
5 pages in length. Credibility of witness testimony relies exclusively upon accuracy and truthfulness, two components that rarely exist when people are asked to recall events that were traumatic or occurred enough in the past for those memories to become distorted. Children as credible witnesses pose the same concerns as their adult counterparts where the suggestibility factors of cognitive, social, motivational and biological are concerned. The extent to which errors, mistakes, confusion, lies, contamination, distortion and pseudomemory all play an integral role is both grand and far-reaching; that children can be impressionable when called upon to recall the events they think they are required to bring forth speaks to the manipulative components behind the aforementioned factors. Bibliography lists 11 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: LM1_TLCChildWit.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
in the past for those memories to become distorted. Children as credible witnesses pose the same concerns as their adult counterparts where the suggestibility factors of cognitive (accuracy), social
(persuasion), motivational (validity) and biological (physical response to recalling traumatic memories) are concerned (Ceci et al, 1993). The extent to which errors, mistakes, confusion, lies, contamination, distortion and pseudomemory
all play an integral role is both grand and far-reaching; that children can be impressionable when called upon to recall the events they think they are required to bring forth
speaks to the manipulative components behind the aforementioned factors. "...[Research indicates] correlations between subjects scores on...test[s] of interrogative suggestibility and several personality variables, among them anxiety, intelligence, field dependence,
and self-esteem. Habitually anxious and inhibited persons with weak cognitive abilities tend to be especially vulnerable to suggestive interviewing" (Endres, 1997, pp. 44-67). Children play an entertaining game
of telephone operator, where one child whispers a short story to the next child in line, who then whispers the story - to the best of his or her recollection
- to the third child in line. When the last child finally receives the story, it has typically been modified so drastically from the original version that it is
wholly unrecognizable, a phenomenon of human nature that speaks to the differing perspectives any two people might have of a single situation. The same holds true with relying upon
eyewitness testimony and recovered memories as being concrete evidence in legal proceedings (Ceci et al, 1995; Cutler et al, 1995; Gudjonsson, 1992). The inherent fallibility of a childs eyewitness testimony
has been the focus of myriad debates, inasmuch as research illustrates how first-hand observers are easily distracted by certain lines of questioning clearly indicate how their recollection becomes skewed and
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