After a child eyewitness has described an alleged perpetrator to the authorities, the child may be asked to look through a photo lineup. Usually, the lineup contains someone the police consider to be a suspect along with several people the police know to be innocent.

Lab research suggests that children as young as 6 can be just as accurate as adults when presented with a lineup that contains the alleged perpetrator, typically scoring accuracy rates of at least 60%. However, when shown a lineup that doesn’t include the target, children are significantly more likely than adults to make a false identification. Researchers suspect children feel pressured into making a selection and are less aware of the potential consequences of false identifications.

One method that works to reduce false identification rates is to add an additional photo consisting of a silhouette with a question mark to the lineup. In this situation, children are told to point to the silhouette card if they do not see the target in the lineup. In multiple studies, the silhouette card reduced false identifications while not reducing the likelihood of a witness’s making a correct identification in the lineup.

Children are more vulnerable to external pressures, such as leading questions. And their memories are more likely to be tainted by post-event misinformation. But they are less likely to have their interpretation of an event influenced by assumptions, previous experiences, prior knowledge or stereotypes than grown-ups are.

For instance, adults in research studies are more likely than children to misremember that a nonviolent bank robbery involved a weapon. It’s also more common for adults to misreport having read a word on a list of words centered around a particular theme. For example, if the list included the words “dream,” “pillow,” “blanket” and “bed,” then adults would be more likely than children to misremember “sleep” having also been on the list.

This area of research needs further exploration, but it seems when specific information cannot be remembered, adult memories often rely upon gist information – that is, the overall structure, but not the specific details – more so than children’s do. This tendency may make adults more prone to spontaneous false memories than children are. However, children are still more vulnerable to externally induced false memories, like those that stem from leading questions or learning new information after the event.

Unfortunately, every year in the U.S. thousands of criminal cases rely on children’s testimony in order to bring charges. Understanding the wide range of factors that can affect memory in these young witnesses is of the utmost importance.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Ben Cotterill, Clemson University . If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Read more:
Why can’t you remember being born, learning to walk or saying your first words? What scientists know about ‘infantile amnesia’

Now who will push ahead on validating forensic science disciplines?

Ben Cotterill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.