Criteria-based Content Analysis - CBCA
Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA)
CBCA is actually a subcomponent of Statement Validity Assessment (SVA). (Please see the introduction to that section above.)
H1 [893] "To date [as of 1994], there are two field studies in the scientific literature addressing the accuracy of CBCA. Both of these studies report very high accuracy, approaching one hundred percent, in classifying true and [894] doubtful statements given by children in real cases of child sexual abuse."
[897] "[A]ll of the accuracy estimates produced to date suggest that CBCA, the scientific analysis portion of the technique, has an accuracy rate higher than most other forensic evidence accepted by the courts."
R20 [153] "[T]he major problem in sexual abuse investigations is not the child's ability to provide an accurate account. The most important question concerns the child's motivation to provide the account and the credibility of that account...Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) of the child's statement is designed to address this problem..."
[154] "Assessment of the validity of allegations of sexual abuse made by child witnesses requires special techniques that go beyond the traditional examination of factors that may affect the accuracy of an account provided by a disinterested witness. The CBCA technique is specifically designed to assess the validity of accounts provided by witnesses whose motives may lead to false accounts and accusations or to whom another interested party may have suggested or pressured them to provide an invalid account. The CBCA approach to these problems is based on pioneering work by Undeutsch (1989), who originated a procedure he called statement reality analysis in the 1950s. The method consists primarily of a content analysis of a witness's statement based on the premise that accounts of self-experienced events differ in content and quality from statements based on invention or fantasy...Content analysis of children's statements of sexual abuse developed over decades of application in tens of thousands of sexual abuse cases in Germany...and it has recently been systematized...and incorporated into a broader procedure known as statement validity assessment ...The purpose of this approach is to differentiate statements based on a child's actual experience of sexual abuse from those that contain substantial invention or fabrication concerning sexual abuse." [Emphases original.]
[155] "CBCA employs 19 specific criteria organized into five categories, as shown in Table 1...These criteria were devised and organized by Steller and Koehnken (1989) from the extensive European literature on statement analysis."
[In the following, the content of 'Arthur's' allegations in the Nickel case will be analyzed and scored:]
[156] Table 1. CONTENT CRITERIA FOR ANALYZING WITNESSES' STATEMENTS
Criteria for Analyzing General Characteristics
1. Logical structure. Is the statement coherent? Is the content logical? Do the different segments fit together? (Note: Peculiar or unique details or unexpected complications do not diminish the logical structure.)
[One dictionary definition of 'coherent' is: "marked by an orderly or logical relation of parts that affords comprehension or recognition"; one of 'logical' is: "reasonable on the basis of earlier statements." In the Nickel case, the fact that 'Arthur' changed his stories as to where the two most serious acts supposedly occurred thus renders his account 'illogical.' Moreover, it is also rendered 'incoherent' by, among other things, his patent inability to distinguish fantasy from reality (nonexistent waterbed, motorcycle, etc.)] [Score: 0. (See orig. pg. 161 below for scoring.)]
2. Unstructured production. Are the descriptions unconstrained? Is the report somewhat unorganized? Are there digressions or spontaneous shifts of focus? Are some elements distributed throughout? (Note: This criterion requires that the account is logically consistent.)
[Because 'Arthur's' account is not 'logically consistent,' this criterion has not been met.] [Score: 0.]
3. Quantity of details. Are there specific descriptions of place or time? Are persons, objects, and events specifically described? (Note: Repetitions are not counted.)
[Well, there are 'descriptions of place '; it's just that they're 100% wrong (house/interior colors, no waterbed or computer in BR, etc.). (There are no descriptions of time .) As for 'persons...specifically described,' 'Arthur' never mentions Nickel's mother or brother, at least one of which would have been seen, had he actually ever been in Nickel's home .] [Score: 1.]
Criteria for Analyzing Specific Contents
4. Contextual embedding. Are events placed in spatial and temporal context? Is the action connected to other incidental events, such as routine daily occurrences?
[In 'Arthur's' case, the answer to both of the above would have to be 'no': There are no statements along the lines of: 'We drove from the house to the pool,' or, 'The sun was going down, so we had to get back.'] [Score: 0.]
5. Descriptions of interactions. Are there reports of actions and reactions or conversation? (Note: Verbatim reproduction of conversation is also scored under Criterion 6.)
[Nope. No statements along the lines of: 'Because he said this, I did that,' 'When I did this, he reacted by...,' etc.] [Score: 0.]
6. Reproduction of conversation. Is conversation reported in its original form? (Note: Use of unfamiliar terms or quotes are especially strong indicators, even when attributed to only one participant.) [Score: 0.]
7. Unexpected complications during the incident. Was there an unplanned interruption or an unexpected complication or difficulty?
[No -- none of that either. A true story would likely be 'peppered' with these sorts of incidental details.] [Score: 0.]
Criteria for Analyzing Peculiarities of Content
8. Unusual details. Are there details of persons, objects, or events that are unusual yet meaningful in this context? (Note: Unusual details must be realistic.)
[The 'unusual details' that 'Arthur' did mention were proven wrong: waterbed, gift of motorcycle, having to duck under BR door, etc.] [Score: 0.]
9. Superfluous details. Are peripheral details reported that are related to the situation but that do not contribute directly to the allegation?
[Again: Yes, but proven wrong.] [Score: 1.]
10. Accurately reported details misunderstood. Did the child correctly describe an object or event but interpret it incorrectly?
[Given that he didn't even describe anything accurately, any 'misinterpretation' is a moot point.] [Score: 0.]
11. Related external associations. Is there reference to an event or conversation of a sexual nature that is related in some way to the incident but that did not occur within the incident?
[Although he didn't testify about it at trial, according to Investigator Ronald Bates' notes of the first interview, 'Arthur' did say the following: "says he has a big one in locker room ('Privates')"/"saw it the park too." It's unclear whether the foregoing word 'says' is supposed to mean 'Arthur' says, or Nickel says. In any event, the 'saw it the park too' is highly misleading, because the locker room is at the (pool) park.] [Score: 1.]
12. Accounts of subjective mental state. Did the child describe feelings or thoughts experienced at the time of the incident?
[In Bates' notes, there is the following entry: "'uncomfortable' and make [sic] me grow. then his finger hurt me." But the latter part of this is really a (fictional) physical feeling, as opposed to an emotion or thought.] [Score: 1.]
13. Attribution of perpetrator's mental state. Is there reference to the alleged perpetrator's feelings or thoughts during the incident?
[Nothing along these lines. Score: 0.]
Criteria for Analyzing Content Related to Motivation
14. Spontaneous corrections. [W]ere corrections offered or information added to material previously provided in the statement? (Note: Responses to direct questions do not qualify.)
[There's no real evidence of this. (But then again, with no recordings of any of the interviews...) 'Arthur' certainly didn't 'correct' anything at trial; quite the opposite -- he clearly changed his answers to please the judge interviewing him (for competency to testify purposes).] [Score: 0.]
15. Admitting lack of memory. Did the child indicate lack of memory or knowledge of an aspect of the incident?
[Though he did say "I have no clue" in answer to one or two questions about tangential issues, 'Arthur' did not 'indicate lack of memory or knowledge of an aspect of the incident.'] [Score: 0.]
16. Raising doubts about one's own testimony. Did the child express concern that some part of the statement seems incorrect or unbelievable? (Note: Merely asserting that one is telling the truth does not qualify.)
[Not so much as a hint of this, either in the notes or trial transcript.] [Score: 0.]
17. Self-deprecation. Did the child describe some aspect of his or her behavior related to the incident as being wrong or inappropriate?
[Same as above -- not a trace anywhere.] [Score: 0.]
18. Pardoning the perpetrator. Did the child make excuses for the alleged perpetrator or fail to blame the alleged perpetrator when an opportunity occurred?
[Interestingly, although 'Arthur' did not 'make excuses,' (the alleged victim) 'Chris' (the charge regarding whom Nickel was acquitted of) did .] [Score: 0.]
Criteria for Analyzing Offense-Specific Elements of Content
19. Details characteristic of the offense. Are there elements that are common to this type of offense? (Note: Details contrary to common knowledge are especially strong indicators.)
[Being generous, 'Arthur' claiming there was pain when Nickel supposedly put his finger in his bottom would seem to fall under this category (notwithstanding the fact that the incident never happened). (Moreover, the only reason he stated this at trial was because the prosecutor prodded him to, as it being 'very painful' was an essential element of 'proving' that offense.)] [Score: 1.]
--- [157] "[A] lying or coached witness is expected to attempt to maintain the basic story without modification; to try to answer all questions, even if that requires additional fabrication; and not to raise doubts about the believability of the story, blame oneself for the events, or minimize negative characterizations of the perpetrator."
[159] "Two recent studies have examined the validity of CBCA and its utility in discriminating between children's descriptions of self-experienced events and statements produced by disingenuous attempts to convince the interviewer that an event was actually experienced...Steller et al. (1988) employed a storytelling competition with a total of 98 schoolchildren from first and fourth grade. They were asked to tell two stories, one concerning an event they had actually experienced and one that they invented."
[160] "Among the general criteria, logical structure and quantity of details discriminated significantly between the self-experienced and invented stories...All of the criteria in the categories of specific content and peculiarities of content, except the perpetrator's mental state, significantly discriminated between the two stories and generally confirmed the underlying hypothesis of CBCA."
"The first scientific study of actual sexual abuse cases was...reported by Esplin, Houed, & Raskin (1988). They applied CBCA to 40 sexual abuse statements obtained from children aged 4 to 15 years who were referred for professional evaluations by Esplin and Raskin. Because assaults by strangers seldom involve motives for a child to misrepresent the events, all of the accused were either family members or people with whom the child was acquainted. The confirmed statements were obtained from 20 children in cases in which 18 of the 20 perpetrators confessed to the allegations prior to any discussions of plea bargains, and 16 of the 20 included definite physical evidence of vaginal or anal trauma. Thus 14 cases had full confessions and physical evidence, 4 had only confessions, and 2 had only physical evidence.
"The 20 doubtful statements were more difficult to identify and confirm. They were obtained from cases in which all 20 of the alleged perpetrators persistently denied the allegations and never made any admissions, and there was a subsequent recantation by the child or a lack of prosecution, judicial dismissal, or a specific finding by the court that no abuse had occurred. In 19 of the 20 doubtful cases there was no corroborating evidence; in the single case with physical evidence, the child later admitted to naming the wrong perpetrator. In addition, polygraph examination results were available on 14 of he 20 alleged perpetrators, all of which indicated truthful outcomes regarding their denials of the allegations. We feel that these criteria indicate a high probability that the doubtful statement were invented and that the confirmed statements were based on memory of self-experienced incidents of abuse."
[161] "Transcripts of the 40 interviews were evaluated by Houed, who had received extensive training in CBCA and had no knowledge concerning the cases. She reviewed the typed transcripts and assigned scores for each of the 19 criteria. If a criterion was not present in the statement, it received a score of 0; if it was present, it received a score of 1; if it was strongly present, it received a score of 2. The scores for each statement were summed to provide a total possible score of 38..."
"The mean score was 24.8 for the confirmed statements and 3.6 for the doubtful statements...[T]he distributions of total scores for the two groups did not overlap, ranging from 16 to 34 for the confirmed statements and from 0 to 14 for the doubtful statements. Thus the overall results obtained with CBCA clearly differentiated the two groups of statements and provided strong confirmation for the method."
[In the Nickel case, totaling the scores for 'Arthur' in Table 1 above yields a figure of 5. (And these were scored 'generously' -- at least two of these points perhaps should have actually been 0s.) Note that this puts 'Arthur' smack in the middle of the 'doubtful' statements in the study under discussion. Also note that none of the 'confirmed' statements had scores less than 16 .]
"The frequency of occurrence of the 19 criteria in the confirmed and doubtful statements were examined, and the results are presented in Table 2 as percentages for each group. Inspection of these results indicates clear support for the utility of most of the 19 content criteria. In line with the CBCA hypotheses, criteria 1, 3, and 19 were present in all confirmed statements and criterion 2 was present in all but one. It is of interest to note that criteria 1 and 3 were also present in about half of the doubtful statements, but criterion 2 was present in only a few of them...[T]he surprising occurrence of criteria 10 and 18 in a doubtful statement was explained when the child later admitted to substituting the perpetrator, which is the most difficult type of case for CBCA and other assessment procedures."
[162] Table 2.
PRESENCE OF CRITERIA-BASED CONTENT ANALYSIS (CBCA) IN CONFIRMED AND DOUBTFUL STATEMENTS OF SEXUAL ABUSE MADE BY 40 CHILDREN AGE 3 TO 15
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CBCA % of % of criterion confirmed statements doubtful statements ============================================================
1 - 100 55
2 - 95 15
3 - 100 55
4 - 100 35
5 - 100 30
6 - 70 0
7 - 70 0
8 - 95 0
9 - 100 5
10 - 5 5
11 - 5 0
12 - 90 30
13 - 40 0
14 - 100 10
15 - 75 35
16 - 10 0
17 - 25 0
18 - 55 5
19 - 100 30
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"The results of these recent studies lend strong support to the underlying principles and hypotheses of CBCA. There is little doubt that children’s descrip- [163] tions of their own experiences of sexual abuse and events with similar features differ in content and quality from statements that are invented, and the CBCA method is a very useful tool for discriminating between such statements and actual cases of sexual abuse. We must reject unsupportable assertions, such as 'there is currently no evidence that children. . .can be led by parents or others to report falsely such events' (Goodman & Helgeson, 1988, p. 110) and 'we know that children do not make up stories asserting they have been sexually molested' (Faller, 1984, p. 475). Psychologists must resist making claims that not only lack scientific support but also are clearly contradicted by data obtained in ecologically valid studies.
"We need psychologically sound procedures that provide a scientifically supportable basis for discriminating between valid statements made by children and those that result from other sources of information, suggestive interviews, and improper influences by others. CBCA combined with an overall validity assessment...has been employed successfully in criminal investigations and judicial proceedings to support statements by children who had been sexually abused and has also served as an important tool to uncover and ameliorate many serious problems caused by fictitious allegations."
M28 [166] "[T]he current data on the reliability of criteria-based credibility assessment seem promising. There are two uses to which this method could be put immediately. First, trained experts can be very helpful to prosecutors (or counsel in civil cases) in determining whether to go forward with a case pivoting on a child's accusations. Likewise, experts might convince counsel for the abusing adult to recommend a plea bargain or the settlement of a civil dispute. Content-based criteria analysis is especially appealing because it can operate after the fact of contamination to avoid an unjust result when, for whatever reason, the child's account is not reliable. Second, the methodology could be very helpful in properly training those who interview children."
W30 [168] "Criteria-based content analysis (CBCA) is an attempt to discriminate between statements of child witnesses that result from self-experienced events and statements that result from suggestions by other people, fantasy, or other forms of invention."
[175] "Expert testimony based on CBCA as was just described is consistent with the rules of evidence and the growing body of case law regarding expert testimony by psychologists...We see no reason why criminal courts should not accept it, and we have testified in this manner in many courts around the country. These include courts whose evidentiary requirements range from the relatively permissive standards of domestic relations proceedings, to the intermediate level of criminal juvenile proceedings, to the strictest requirements of the criminal courts. Some of this testimony has been presented at the direct request of the courts."
