Eyewitness testimony by adults with autism spectrum disorder, experimental data 2012-2013

There are two sets of data uploaded. (1.) This data is from a paper in Applied Cognitive Psychology titled "Evaluating the effectiveness of the Self-Administered Interview for witnesses with autism spectrum disorder" (Maras, K. L., Mulchahy, S., Memon, A., Picariello, F. & Bowler, D. M.). The widely used evidence-based police interviewing technique, the Cognitive Interview, is not effective for witnesses with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study examined whether a modification of the Cognitive Interview that removes the social element, the Self-Administered Interview© (SAI, Gabbert, Hope & Fisher, 2009), is more useful in facilitating recall by ASD witnesses. One of the main components of the Cognitive Interview is context reinstatement, where the witness follows verbal instructions from the interviewer to mentally recreate the personal and physical context that they experienced during the event. The present findings showed that this procedure is not effective for witnesses with ASD in SAI format in which the social component of its administration is removed. However, the SAI sketch plan component did elicit more correct details from the ASD group, although to a lesser degree than for the comparison group. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. (2)This data is from a paper titled: "Recall of a live and personally experienced eyewitness event by adults with autism spectrum disorder", which was published in 2013 in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Maras, K. L., Memon, A., Lambrechts, A. & Bowler, D.M., 2013). The aim of the present study was to a) extend previous eyewitness research in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using a live and personally experienced event; b) examine whether witnesses with ASD demonstrate a facilitative effect in memory for self- over other-performed actions; c) explore source monitoring abilities by witnesses with ASD in discriminating who performed which actions within the event. Eighteen high-functioning adults with ASD and 18 age- and IQ-matched typical counterparts participated in a live first aid scenario in which they and the experimenter each performed a number of actions. Participants were subsequently interviewed for their memory of the event using a standard interview procedure with free recall followed by questioning. The ASD group recalled just as many correct details as the comparison group from the event overall, however they made more errors. This was the case across both free recall and questioning phases. Both groups showed a self-enactment effect across both interview phases, recalling more actions that they had performed themselves than actions that the experimenter had performed. However, the ASD group were more likely than their typical comparisons to confuse the source of self-performed actions in free recall, but not in questioning, which may indicate executive functioning difficulties with unsupported test procedures. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications. NOTE: Information/consent forms for the study titled "Recall of a live and personally experienced eyewitness event by adults with autism spectrum disorder" at the time of testing did not include a sentence informing participants that their anonymised data may be made available for re-use or shared according to ESRC policy on data sharing. Participants have been retrospectively contacted with an addendum to the original consent form and most have provided written notification that they are happy for their data to be made available. However, this was done approx. 2 years after testing, and it has not been possible to make contact to obtain explicit consent from five participants. Therefore a partial data set is uploaded, containing data only from participants whom have given their explicit consent.The main aim of the project was to investigate how well ASD witnesses recall a live and personally experienced event, and specifically their recall for actions that they performed themselves versus those performed by another person. This is particularly important because witnesses can play both passive (bystaner) or active (victim) roles in events and the level of involvement can influence memory. Our findings suggested that witnesses with ASD did, in fact, recall more details of a live event when they carried out actions themselves. However they were also more likely to confuse the source of who performed which actions unless they were given more directed questions in interviews. Additionally, the project explored the effectiveness of a “self-administered” interviewing technique for witness with ASD.

Show More

Geographic Coverage:

GB

Temporal Coverage:

2012-04-02/2013-09-30

Resource Type:

dataset

Available in Data Catalogs:

UK Data Service

Topics: