Children who are involved in legal cases are often interviewed about events they witnessed or that might have happened to them. Occasionally, after such interviews, children are confronted with misinformation regarding their experiences. The question that arises is whether their earlier interviews may protect them from reporting misinformation. The goal of the present experiment was to assess whether empirically based interviewing by means of the National Institute for Child Health and Development (NICHD) Protocol would affect the reporting of misinformation in children. Children were involved in an interactive event (i.e., science demonstration). Following this, three experimental groups were created: one group was interviewed using the NICHD Protocol, one group had to freely recall what they experienced, and one group was not asked to retrieve any memories about the event. Next, all children received misinformation concerning the event and were then subjected to a final memory test. We found that children’s recall during the NICHD interview protected children against the incorporation of misinformation in their accounts of the event. This effect was absent in the other two conditions. The current experiment suggests that evidence-based investigative interviewing can inoculate children’s memory against the corrupting impact of misinformation.

卷入法律案件的儿童经常接受采访，了解他们目睹的或可能发生在他们身上的事件。偶尔，在这样的采访之后，孩子们会遇到关于他们经历的错误信息。出现的问题是他们之前的采访是否可以保护他们免于报告错误信息。本实验的目的是评估通过国家儿童健康与发展研究所 (NICHD) 协议进行的基于经验的访谈是否会影响儿童错误信息的报告。孩子们参与了互动活动（即科学演示）。在此之后，创建了三个实验组：一组使用 NICHD 协议进行采访，一组必须自由回忆他们的经历，并且没有要求一组人检索有关该事件的任何记忆。接下来，所有儿童都收到了有关该事件的错误信息，然后接受了最终的记忆测试。我们发现，儿童在 NICHD 采访期间的回忆可以保护儿童免于在他们对事件的描述中加入错误信息。在其他两种情况下没有这种效果。当前的实验表明，基于证据的调查性访谈可以使儿童的记忆免受错误信息的破坏性影响。在其他两种情况下没有这种效果。当前的实验表明，基于证据的调查性访谈可以使儿童的记忆免受错误信息的破坏性影响。在其他两种情况下没有这种效果。当前的实验表明，基于证据的调查性访谈可以使儿童的记忆免受错误信息的破坏性影响。