(Non) CSA hypotheses built by participants for an example mock case.
sexual abuse
EVENT
Each participant conducted five interviews with five avatars randomly selected from the sixteen avatars. Each interview lasted up to 10 minutes. The participants could terminate the interview before 10 min had passed if they believed they had already gained enough information from the avatar. After each interview, participants were asked to answer three questions regarding the reliability of the information from the avatar: (1) How reliable is the information given by the avatar you just interviewed? not reliable (0%)—highly reliable (100%) (2) To what extent was the information given by the avatar you just interviewed contradictory? not contradictory (0%)—highly contradictory (100%) (3) How suggestible (i.e. going along with leading questions) was the avatar you just interviewed? not suggestible (0%)—highly suggestible (100%). Participants were also asked to make judgments on the presence or the absence of child sexual abuse for the second time based on the information elicited from the avatar. Different from the preliminary assumption, participants needed to first decide the presence or absence of the abuse (“present” or “absent”) and then offer a detailed account of the event. If the answer to the first question was “present”, participants needed to provide an account of where, how, and by whom was the avatar abused. If the judgment was “absent”, participants needed to provide an account of the unfounded CSA allegation. The participants in the Feedback condition received feedback on the case outcome and question type (two recommended questions and two not recommended questions) after each interview. The feedback on question type contained the categorizations of the questions as well as their impacts on the reliability of children’s statements.