Measuring Children's Trust in Testimony

Recruit 3- and 4-year-old children who have normal vision and hearing. For the purposes of this demonstration, only one child is tested. Larger sample sizes are recommended when conducting any experiments.

1. Gather the necessary materials.

1. Obtain two hand puppets clearly distinguishable from each other. In this demonstration, use two male puppets with different facial features and clothing.
2. Gather four common objects familiar to young children. In this demonstration, use a car, a spoon, a ball, and a cup.
3. Obtain six novel objects not familiar to young children.

2. Data collection

1. Introduction
   1. Introduce the child to the puppets by saying, “I brought a bunch of fun things with me today, and I also brought two puppet friends: Ben and Tom.”
   2. Introduce each puppet to the child by acting as the puppet and saying: “Hi, I’m Ben/Tom. What’s your name? [Child responds.] Nice to meet you, [child’s name].”
2. History phase
   1. Set the four common objects on the table in front of the child and say: “Let’s show these things to Ben and Tom. We’ll let them talk now, and we can watch and listen.”
   2. Have each puppet label each of the objects.
      1. Have one puppet label all four objects correctly. For example, for the ball, the puppet says: “I think that’s a ball. Yes, that’s a ball.”
      2. Have the other puppet label all four objects incorrectly. For example, for the ball, the puppet says: “I think that’s a horse. Yes, that’s a horse.”
   3. Make sure that Ben always goes first. For half of the children, Ben is the accurate puppet, and for the other half, Ben is the inaccurate puppet.
3. Test phase
   1. In this phase, present a pair of novel objects to the children, followed by conflicting information about the objects’ labels.
   2. Place two novel objects on the table.
   3. Turn to one puppet (Ben) and say: “Look, Ben. What’s this?” and pick up one of the objects. Have the puppet respond: “I think that’s a blicket. Yes, that’s blicket. Do you see the blicket?” and look at the child. Place the object back on the table.
   4. Turn to the other puppet (Tom) and repeat the question, while picking up the other novel object. Have the puppet respond in the same way as before, labeling it a blicket. Place the object back on the table.
   5. Put down the puppets, and then the experimenter closes their eyes, holds out their hands, and asks the child: “Can you give me the blicket?” Note which object the child chooses.
   6. Repeat this procedure two more times with different sets of objects and different words (“truly” and “modi”).
   7. Counterbalance the specific objects named by each puppet between subjects.
4. Confirmation phase
   1. In order to confirm that children were familiar with the objects used in the history phase, place the four common objects from the history phase on the table again and ask the children, “What is this?” Record the responses.

3. Analysis

1. First, calculate the number of correct responses children provide in the confirmation phase. Exclude the children who perform poorly in this phase from further analysis, as they would not have recognized that the puppets differed in accuracy.
2. Calculate a score of 0-3 based on how many times the children chose the object that the accurate puppet named in the test phase. For the purpose of discussing and illustrating the results, convert these scores to percentages out of 100.
3. Compare the children’s scores on the test phase to chance (score of 1.5) using a one-sample t-test.
4. Compare the children’s scores across age groups using an independent-samples t-test.