Mock Juror Perceptions of Child Witnesses on the Autism Spectrum: The Impact of Providing Diagnostic Labels and Information About Autism

<p>Does how much children say predict how credible they are as a witness? Children’s talkativeness can be easily observed by jurors, but we know very little about how it affects judgements of children’s credibility. The present research investigates the effect of talkativeness on juror perceptions and children’s actual testimony. In Study 1 participants rated six transcripts from low/high talkative 5-, 8-, or 12-year old children. Results showed that mock jurors rated high-talkative children more favourably than low-talkative children and older children were rated more favourably than younger children. In Study 2 we analysed transcripts of memory interviews from 5-, 8-, and 12-year-old children. Talkativeness was not associated with accuracy, but child age was. Talkativeness and child age were both associated with the amount of information recalled. This research shows that talkativeness of child witnesses not only influences juror perceptions but also is an indication of the amount of information that children recall in a memory interview. It is not just what a child says, but also how they say it that matters.</p>

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Perception versus reality: Investigating the impact of talkativeness on children’s credibility and reliability

10.26686/wgtn.17142230 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Helen Pierce

Keyword(s):

Child Witnesses ◽

Older Children ◽

Mock Jurors ◽

Juror Perceptions ◽

Amount Of Information ◽

The Impact ◽

Child Age

<p>Does how much children say predict how credible they are as a witness? Children’s talkativeness can be easily observed by jurors, but we know very little about how it affects judgements of children’s credibility. The present research investigates the effect of talkativeness on juror perceptions and children’s actual testimony. In Study 1 participants rated six transcripts from low/high talkative 5-, 8-, or 12-year old children. Results showed that mock jurors rated high-talkative children more favourably than low-talkative children and older children were rated more favourably than younger children. In Study 2 we analysed transcripts of memory interviews from 5-, 8-, and 12-year-old children. Talkativeness was not associated with accuracy, but child age was. Talkativeness and child age were both associated with the amount of information recalled. This research shows that talkativeness of child witnesses not only influences juror perceptions but also is an indication of the amount of information that children recall in a memory interview. It is not just what a child says, but also how they say it that matters.</p>

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The Impact of Defendant Race on Mock Juror Judgments: A Meta-Analytic Review

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e566842012-560 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Randall A. Gordon ◽

Dena J. Baker

Keyword(s):

Mock Juror ◽

Analytic Review ◽

The Impact

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Aviation and the Microbiome

Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance ◽

10.3357/amhp.5576.2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 91 (8) ◽

pp. 651-661

Author(s):

Joshua T. Davis ◽

Hilary A. Uyhelji

Keyword(s):

Psychological Health ◽

Aviation Safety ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Unintended Consequences ◽

Microbial Colonization ◽

Future Research ◽

Aerospace Medicine ◽

Medical Certification ◽

Physical Disorders ◽

The Impact

INTRODUCTION: Although the impact of microorganisms on their hosts has been investigated for decades, recent technological advances have permitted high-throughput studies of the collective microbial genomes colonizing a host or habitat, also known as the microbiome. This literature review presents an overview of microbiome research, with an emphasis on topics that have the potential for future applications to aviation safety. In humans, research is beginning to suggest relationships of the microbiome with physical disorders, including type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease. The microbiome also has been associated with psychological health, including depression, anxiety, and the social complications that arise in autism spectrum disorders. Pharmaceuticals can alter microbiome diversity, and may lead to unintended consequences both short and long-term. As research strengthens understanding of the connections between the microbiota and human health, several potential applications for aerospace medicine and aviation safety emerge. For example, information derived from tests of the microbiota has potential future relevance for medical certification of pilots, accident investigation, and evaluation of fitness for duty in aerospace operations. Moreover, air travel may impact the microbiome of passengers and crew, including potential impacts on the spread of disease nationally and internationally. Construction, maintenance, and cleaning regimens that consider the potential for microbial colonization in airports and cabin environments may promote the health of travelers. Altogether, the mounting knowledge of microbiome effects on health presents several opportunities for future research into how and whether microbiome-based insights could be used to improve aviation safety.Davis JT, Uyhelji HA. Aviation and the microbiome. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2020; 91(8):651–661.

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What Gives a Diagnostic Label Value? Common Use Over Informativeness

10.31234/osf.io/er6ku ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Babak Hemmatian ◽

Sze Yu Yu Chan ◽

Steven A. Sloman

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Mental Health Professionals ◽

Health Professionals ◽

Causal Relation ◽

Causal Beliefs ◽

Diagnostic Categories ◽

Diagnostic Labels ◽

Diagnostic Label ◽

The Impact ◽

Practical Implications

A label’s entrenchment, its degree of use by members of a community, affects its perceived explanatory value even if the label provides no substantive information (Hemmatian & Sloman, 2018). In three experiments, we show that laypersons and mental health professionals see entrenched psychiatric and non-psychiatric diagnostic labels as better explanations than non-entrenched labels even if they are circular. Using scenarios involving experts who discuss unfamiliar diagnostic categories, we show that this preference is not due to violations of conversational norms, lack of reflectiveness or attentiveness, and the characters’ familiarity or unfamiliarity with the label. In Experiment 1, whether a label provided novel symptom information or not had no impact on lay responses, while its entrenchment enhanced ratings of explanation quality. The effect persisted in Experiment 2 for causally incoherent categories and regardless of direct provision of mechanistic information. The effect of entrenchment was partly related to induced causal beliefs about the category, even when participants were informed there is no causal relation. Most participants in both experiments did not report any effect of entrenchment and the effect was present for those who did not. In Experiment 3, mental health professionals showed the effect using diagnoses that were mere shorthands for symptoms, despite a tendency to rate all explanations as unsatisfactory. The data suggest that bringing experts’ attention to the manipulation eliminates the effect. We discuss practical implications for mental health disciplines and potential ways to mitigate the impact of entrenchment.

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Effectiveness of Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapies for Improving Adaptive Behavior and Motor Function in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm10081726 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (8) ◽

pp. 1726

Author(s):

Leonardo Zoccante ◽

Michele Marconi ◽

Marco Luigi Ciceri ◽

Silvia Gagliardoni ◽

Luigi Alberto Gozzi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Motor Function ◽

Adaptive Behavior ◽

Preliminary Evidence ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Parental Distress ◽

Effective Option ◽

The Impact ◽

Equine Assisted

Equine-assisted activities and therapies (EAAT) have been suggested to improve adaptive behavior, and possibly motor function, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study investigated the effects of EAAT on adaptive behavior and motor function in 15 children with ASD (13 males) aged 7–15 years as well as the impact of EAAT on the magnitude of stress in the parent–child system and the evolution in the child interaction with both the trained therapist and the therapeutic animal through the 20 weekly sessions of EAAT. EAAT were associated with greater adaptive behavior and coordination (all p ≤ 0.01) as well as a progressive improvement in the child’s abilities to respond to the increasing complexity of such form of positive behavioral support (all p < 0.001). However, EAAT did not prove to be effective in reducing parental distress. Collectively, preliminary evidence presented here may have important public health implications and gives reason to hope that EAAT could possibly be an effective option in ASD, warranting further investigation of its potential benefits in clinical trials among larger samples.

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Recognition of Emotions from Situational Contexts and the Impact of a Mind Reading Intervention in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Child Psychiatry & Human Development ◽

10.1007/s10578-021-01139-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Denise Davidson ◽

Elizabeth Hilvert ◽

Adrien M. Winning ◽

Michael Giordano

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Reading Intervention ◽

Children With Autism ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Mind Reading ◽

Situational Contexts ◽

Recognition Of Emotions ◽

The Impact

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Supporting Youth With Autism Learning Social Competence: A Comparison of Game- and Nongame-Based Activities in 3D Virtual World

Journal of Educational Computing Research ◽

10.1177/07356331211022003 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 073563312110220

Author(s):

Xianhui Wang ◽

Wanli Xing

Keyword(s):

Social Interaction ◽

Social Competence ◽

Central Element ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Virtual Learning Environment ◽

Learning Activities ◽

Behavior Patterns ◽

Interaction Behavior ◽

Significant Difference ◽

The Impact

This study explored youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) learning social competence in the context of innovative 3D virtual learning environment and the effects of gaming as a central element of the learning experience. The empirical study retrospectively compared the social interactions of 11 adolescents with ASD in game-and nongame-based 3D collaborative learning activities in the same social competence training curriculum. We employed a learning analytics approach - association rule mining to uncover the associative rules of verbal social interaction and nonverbal social interaction contributors from the large dataset of the coded social behaviors. By comparing the rules across the game and nongame activities, we found a significant difference in youth with ASD’s social performance. The results of the group comparison study indicated that the co-occurrence of verbal and nonverbal behaviors is much stronger in the game-based learning activities. The game activities also yielded more diverse social interaction behavior patterns. On the other hand, in the nongame activities, students’ social interaction behavior patterns are much more limited. Furthermore, the impact of game design principles on learning is then discussed in this paper.

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