Background & Methodology

Subject:PsychologyPrice: Bought3

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Background & Methodology. The use of children's drawings as a means of representing factual information or eliciting factual information from children has been the topic of hot debate for decades. For example, drawings have been used in therapy sessions, interviews, and as evidence of war crimes. Little is known, however, about adults' ability to accurately assess the veracity of children's drawings and whether or not the age of the artist may impact such assessments. To examine this question, four groups of 10 children each participated in two events and drew pictures of their experience. Each group of children witnessed a mildly arousing event unfold in front of them in an eyewitness-like setting and heard about another arousing event in story format. The children were asked to draw a picture of each event immediately after it occurred. The order of events and theme of the events were fully counterbalanced across the groups and across two data collection sessions. For example, Group A witnessed an event about a lost cell phone and drew a picture, then heard a story about spilled chocolate sauce and ice cream and drew a picture. Group B witnessed a chocolate sauce and ice cream event and then heard the story about the lost cell phone. On the second day of testing, a new Group A completed the task for listening to a story ?rst, followed by the witnessed event; counterbalancing for the new Group B was similar. This methodology resulted in two drawings from each participant: one that represented an experienced event and one that represented a non-experienced story-like event. The age and gender of the artists were recorded but only age (older children were 12-15 years old; younger children were 7-11 years old) was examined statistically; gender was collected for descriptive purposes only. A large group of adults (n = 150) then viewed each image one at a time in random order and provided two judgements: (a) whether the picture was based on experience or not (they circled "experienced" or "not experienced"), and (b) how con?dent they were in their decision (they provided a rating from "0% = Not con?dent at all" to "100% for each assessment). Adults' responses to each image were then assessed for accuracy (accurate assessments vs. inaccurate assessments). Analysis for the con?dence data was put on hold for the time being.