Below are excerpts from Lies! Lies!! Lies!!! The Psychology of Deceit by Carles V. Ford, M.D. So many people are attacked by false accusers that I thought it would benefit to look at false accusers from a psychiatrists standpoint.

Controversy surrounds the reliability of children’s memories and their competency to provide accurate testimony in court. Reirch studies such as those by Ceci and colleagues (1987) and Tate and colleagues (1992) indicate that children as young as age 3 or 4 years do “lie” or “misremember” and that they are more likely to so in response to suggestions made by an authority figure with whom they are familiar. From their research, and consistent with search performed with adults, Ceci and colleagues found that post-event suggestions can in fact distort memory” (p. 38).

Research conducted by Haugaard (1993) found that small children, including preschoolers, have an accurate concept of what constitutes a lie. Essentially all children understand the difference between the truth and a lie by the time they are in first grade. However, their memories can become distorted when the authority of an adult corroborates a lie. Haugaard’s research technique involved using a videotape in which the “facts” were clear. In one version of the tape, a boy lied to a man that his daughter had hit the boy while the boy’s mother passively listened. All of the children clearly recognized the lie. In another version, the mother actively lied in support of the boy’s lies to the man. In the latter version, the children’s memories of what had actually happened were distorted, and preschoolers and kindergarten children in particular were more likely to remember that one child had hit another when, in fact, that had not occurred.

A recent scholarly review by Ceci and Bruck (1993) synthesized the empirical data available concerning the suggestibility of child witnesses. These authors concluded that children-even preschoolers-are capable of recalling information that is forensically relevant. They also cautioned that children are suggestible (as are adults) and that how they are interrogated may influence their memories of events. Children are more likely to “recall” events that have been suggested to them if interrogated repetitively with leading questions. Just like adults, children may shape their memories and testimony to conform with the wishes of an authority figure.

Note: These kinds of facts would make a recording of the questioning essential. In a criminal case, a failure to preserve this questioning could amount to the suppression of potentially exculpatory evidence. In a civil case, the destruction or failure to preserve the questioning of the witness may give rise to the entitlement of a jury instruction informing a jury that failure to preserve evidence gives rise to the presumption that the evidence would have been against the party that failed to preserve the evidence.

• Lies! Lies!! Lies!!! Part 2
• Lies! Lies!! Lies!!! Part 3
• Lies! Lies!! Lies!!! Part 1