This study examined the effects of credibility-challenging questions (n = 2,729) on 62 5- to 17-year-olds' testimony in child sexual abuse cases in Scotland by categorizing the type, source, and content of the credibility-challenging questions defense lawyers asked and assessing how children responded. Credibility-challenging questions comprised 14.9% of all questions asked during cross-examination. Of defense lawyers' credibility-challenging questions, 77.8% focused generally on children's honesty, whereas the remainder referred to specific inconsistencies in the children's testimony. Children resisted credibility challenges 54% of the time, significantly more often than they provided compliant responses (26.8%). The tendency to resist was significantly lower for questions focused on specific rather than general inconsistencies, and peripheral rather than central content. Overall, children resisted credibility challenges more often when the aim and content of the question could be understood easily. As this was a field study, the accuracy of children's responses could not be assessed. The findings suggest that credibility-challenging questions that place unrealistic demands on children's memory capacities (e.g., questions focused on peripheral content or highly specific details) occur frequently, and that juries should be made aware of the disproportionate effects of such questioning on the consistency of children's testimony.

中文翻译：

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在苏格兰法院质疑儿童性虐待指控受害者的可信度。

本研究通过对可信度挑战问题辩护的类型、来源和内容进行分类，考察了可信度挑战问题 (n = 2,729) 对苏格兰儿童性虐待案件中 62 名 5 至 17 岁儿童证词的影响律师询问并评估儿童的反应。质疑可信度的问题占质证过程中提出的所有问题的 14.9%。在辩护律师提出的可信度挑战问题中，77.8% 一般关注儿童的诚实问题，而其余的则提到儿童证词中具体的不一致之处。儿童在 54% 的情况下抵制可信度挑战，明显高于他们提供顺从回应的情况 (26.8%)。对于针对具体而不是一般不一致、以及次要内容而不是中心内容的问题，抵制倾向明显较低。总体而言，当问题的目的和内容容易理解时，孩子们更容易抵制可信度挑战。由于这是一项实地研究，因此无法评估儿童反应的准确性。研究结果表明，对儿童记忆能力提出不切实际要求的可信度挑战问题（例如，关注次要内容或高度具体细节的问题）经常发生，陪审团应该意识到此类问题对记忆一致性的不成比例的影响。孩子们的见证。