Effectiveness of Body Maps as an

Interview Technique for Adults and

Children

Report by: Kishendri Moodley

Lab 111A (Demonstrator: Yuxin Zhang)

23/08/2021
 Abstract

This study aimed to examine how well children and adults could use body maps to show

where touch occurred on another person. It was hypothesised that adults would report more

correct touches than children and that adults would have higher accuracy scores than

children. A total of 26 University of Otago psychology students and 14 children 5-6 years old

from the psychology department database were recruited. Participants watched a 2-minute

video before being asked to indicate on a body map where the female in the video was

touched by another person. Children completed this on paper whilst adults used computers.

The measured variables were the correct score and the accuracy score. Results showed that

adults had a lower correct score than children and both adults and children had less than half

touch locations correct with the same low accuracy score. This did not support the hypothesis

as adults scored lower than children for correct responses and the accuracy number for

children and adults was the same. As a result, it is implied that body maps are not an

effective non-verbal technique for child interviews and should be used at one’s discretion.
 In many situations such as in the court of law, children need to testify or recall events.

This often includes describing touching that occurred in cases involving sexual assault or

abuse of a child (Department of Psychology, 2021). Children do not have a verbal ability as

developed as adults, so children are interviewed by using non-verbal techniques (Laboratory

Notes: Psychology 112, 2021). These techniques are coupled with verbal reports as

supporting information or used separately. Verbal techniques include free recall which

provides accurate information but is limited as questions are open ended (Laboratory Notes:

Psychology 112, 2021). Another technique is specific questions which increase the

information provided but results in less accurate reports as they can be suggestive. Specific

questions can influence children’s answers, often basing their response on what they can

gather from the question (Goodman & Reed, 1986, cited in Laboratory Notes: Psychology

112, 2021).

Non-verbal techniques are used in interviews of young children these include

drawings, props, anatomically detailed dolls (AD dolls) and anatomically detailed drawings

(AD drawings). Children sometimes draw what happened (a non-verbal technique). In a study

done by Gross & Hayne (1999) it was found that children who drew whilst talking provided

more verbal information on what happened than those who were not drawing (Gross &

Hayne, 1999, cited in Department of Psychology, 2021).

Props are another non-verbal technique used. When using props children tend to give

more accurate informational, however, the results can differ depending on whether the prop is

a toy or real. Toy props give less information due to confusion as to whether the prop is for

exploration and play or whether it represents something from the incident (Salmon, Bidrose,

and Pipe, 1995, cited in Department of Psychology, 2021). AD dolls are another non-verbal

technique that is not always accurate. This is because children of a young age can have

trouble distinguishing between dolls that represents themselves and dolls used as a play toy
which can result in misinterpreting play for forms of abuse (Department of Psychology,

2021). Lastly, there are AD drawings and body maps. AD drawings are drawings of a human

figure specific to children’s gender or gender-neutral. These are generally not drawn with

clothing and include anatomical detail (Department of Psychology, 2021). Body maps are

similar except they can include clothing and do not have anatomical detail added (Morgan,

Dorgan and Hayne, 2013). Body maps are thought to be better than AD drawings as unlike

the AD dolls they are two-dimensional and therefore, children do not misinterpret it as a toy

so the accuracy and information given by children may increase using body maps

(Department of Psychology, 2021).

In 2006 a study at the University of Otago was conducted by Willcock, Morgan and

Hayne. The study aimed to investigate the accuracy and amount of information that could be

elicited from children using body maps (Willcock et al., 2006). One experiment in this study

involved 46 children aged between 5-6 years old. These children were recruited from 4

primary schools in Dunedin, New Zealand and were split into three groups, 15 were in the

immediate group, 15 in 24 hours and 16 in 1 month (Willcock et al., 2006). These groups

related to the time frame after the event that the children would be interviewed. Children

were introduced to a confederate from the local fire station who interacted with them before

asking if they wanted to dress up in a fire service outfit (Willcock et al., 2006, cited in

Department of Psychology 112, 2021). Whilst helping the children change the confederate

touched them in five areas (the head, both shoulders and under each arm). Each child was

interviewed individually and was asked to indicate on a body map where they had touched

them, these areas were marked with a cross. Genital-touches and breast touches were also

counted (Willcock et al., 2006). Results from this experiment showed that children who were

interviewed immediately had on average 2.47 touches correct, this was more than those

interviewed after 24 hours (1.33) and after 1 month (1.25) (Willcock et al., 2006). Those
interviewed immediately had fewer errors in comparison to the 24- hour group and the 1-

month group. The results of incorrect answers being 1.40 for immediately, 1.60 for 24 hours

after and 1.63 for 1 month after (Willcock et al., 2006). In this study, the number of sexual

touches indicated by children was 7.1% for genital touch and 23.8% for a breast touch

(Willcock et al., 2006). These results influenced the conclusion made by Willcock et al.

(2006) that body maps are untrustworthy, and in court and clinical scenarios using them

should be reconsidered. Therefore, Willcock et al. (2006) concluded that if body maps were

to still be used the consequences could result in letting guilty people free or convicting

innocent people as they can be inaccurate. This inaccuracy was thought to be caused by

children’s inability to understand that the drawing represents them (Willcock et al., 2006).

Morgan, Dorgan and Hayne conducted a study in 2013 at the University of Otago.

This study aimed to explore if body maps are helpful in interviews not only for young

children but older children and adults who struggle explaining the incident Morgan et al.

(2013). For this experiment participants were half female and half male and included 24

children from 5 – 6 years old, 24 children from 9 – 10 years old and 24 adults with a mean

age of 35.25 years old (Morgan et al., 2013). The event of touch was a wizard’s magic trick.

Participants were shown a cat picture which the wizard claimed she could perform a spell to

turn them into a cat (Morgan et al., 2013, cited in Department of Psychology, 2021). When

performing this trick the wizard would touch four areas on the participant, the nose, upper

arm, side of waist and the ankle (Morgan et al., 2013). The wizard then performed a spell,

making them look at a mirror through a cut out of a cat giving the impression that they turned

into a cat (Morgan et al., 2013). After the magic trick the participants were asked where they

were touched. Half of the participants would show this on a body map specific to their gender

and the other half would show it on their own body (Morgan et al., 2013). Area’s participants

claimed to be touched was marked with a cross on the body map or noted down. The areas
were marked accordingly with touches on the 4 specified areas being correct and anywhere

else incorrect (Morgan et al., 2013). According to Morgan et al (2013). Adults had the

highest average for correct locations using body maps (3.25) and showing on their body r

(3.92) followed by 9 -10 year olds (3.17 and 2.67) and then 5 -6 year olds (1.75 and 1.83).

Morgan et al. (2013) found for incorrect touches on body maps and on their body 5 – 6-year-

olds had on average the most incorrect (1.17 and 0.83), followed by 9 – 10-year-olds (0.50

and 0.33) and then by adults (0.33 and 0). This showed that body maps do not improve the

reports of children aged 5 – 6 year olds as on average they got more correct when using their

own body and got more incorrect when using body maps. Increased incorrect answers using

body maps was seen for both adults and 9 -10 year olds as well. The only group which

increased incorrect answers using body maps are 9 -10-year-olds. As a result, Morgan et al.

(2013) found body maps do not increase information or accuracy even if questioned

immediately after the event. Therefore, they concluded that body maps do not aid in the

description of abuse or touch of older children and adults.

For this report, the study investigates the effect of body maps on children and adults

recall of physical touch events. This study aims to examine how well children and adults can

use body maps to show where touch occurred on another person. To explore these children

and adults were shown a video in which a child was being dressed up by an adult.

Participants were then asked to indicate on a body map where the child was touched. Results

were then calculated for the number of correct touches recorded and the accuracy of each

group of children and adults. It was hypothesised that adults would report more correct

touches than children and that adults would have higher accuracy scores than children. This

experiment differs from Morgan et al. (2013) and the Willcock et al. (2013) studies as each

group was not interviewed at different intervals and no participants were asked to show on

their body where they were touched.

 Method

Participants

This experiment involved both child and adult participants. Twenty-six adults were

recruited as part of their course requirement for Psychology 112 at the University of Otago.

Their age ranged from 18 to 22 years old of which 17 were females and 9 were males.

Children were recruited from a database used for past University of Otago experiments.

There were 14 children recruited, 7 males and 7 females ranging from 5 to 6 years old.

Materials

For this experiment desktops were used to present adults with a body map. For

children, paper with a body map and pencils were provided. A 2-minute video was also

presented to adult and child participants and consisted of a male helping 8-year-old Antonia

to dress up as a pirate. Coding transparency was also used to score body maps by the

experimenters (Department of Psychology, 2021). The correct answers used for marking

were 5 different places including the arm, stomach, knee, back of the head and hand.

Procedure

In this experiment, the manipulated variable was the age of participants and consisted

of two levels. One being children between 5 – 6 years old and the other was adult participants

between the age of 18 – 22. The experiment design was between subjects as not all

participants contributed to the same level of the manipulated variable that being the results of

each participant was used for a single level. At the start of this experiment, adult participants

wrote their demographics down on paper. They were then shown a 2-minute video. When the

video ended, adult participants were instructed to sit at a desktop in the lab and follow the

instructions on the screen, whilst children were given a paper body map and were asked to

draw a cross where they saw Antonia being touched. Adults were told through instruction on
the screen to click on the displayed body map where they remember Antonia being touched

by the male was that even if they click on an area twice e.g., both hands, only one will be

counted (Department of Psychology, 2021). Once adult participants had completed the task

on the computer a pre-loaded computer software had calculated their results. When children

completed the video, the experimenter used coding transparency to calculate the results.

Results

For this experiment the measured variable observed was the number of correct

touches out of 5 and the accuracy. These were calculated for adults using pre-loaded software

whilst for children it was calculated using coding transparency. Accuracy was calculated by

the formula (Correct answers/total number of touches). Each participant’s results for both

groups were calculated separately before being averaged across all participants in their

respective groups.

Table 1

Mean Number of Correct Touches and Mean Accuracy Score of Adult and Child Participants
Adult Children

Mean number of correct touches 1.46 1.71

Mean accuracy score 0.42 0.42

As shown in table 1 children appear to have a higher mean number of correct answers

than adults with children having got 1.71 on average and adults 1.46 on average. Another key

finding seen in table 1 was the mean accuracy score of which both adults and children had the

same result that being 0.42 on average.

 Discussion

This experiment showed that on average adults got fewer touch locations correct

when using a body map than children do. Furthermore, the accuracy of both adults and

children are the same when using body maps. These results do not support the hypothesis as

unlike hypothesised adults did not have more correct touches than children nor did adults

have a higher accuracy score than children. This indicates that body maps do not help to elicit

more accurate information from both adults and children. This may be due to children

tending to pay attention to what they see rather than listening to audio whereas adults focus

more on the plot rather than the gesture (Department of Psychology, 2021). Children were

unable to get on average more than half of the touches correct, this is consistent with

Willcock et al. (2006) study which found that even when interviewed immediately after the

touch event children would be unable to get over half of the touches on average correct.

Applying reasoning from Willcock et al’s study children in the present study are not aided by

the body map and have a low accuracy score due to children’s inability to understand what

the drawing represents.

Findings from this study are partially consistent with the Morgan et al. (2013) study.

In the present study, adults had a lower average of correct touches than children which is

inconsistent with the Morgan et al. (2013) study which showed adults had much a much

higher average of correct touches. The understanding from Morgan et al. (2013) findings

does, however, correspond to this present study. That being that because children on average

got less than half of the touches correct and had low accuracies body maps are not suitable

for use in child interviews and could result in unfair rulings in court settings for the victim or

defendant (Morgan et al., 2013).

 A limitation of this experiment is that children had watched the video individually

whilst adults had watched the video in a group. This is a limitation because both groups were

not put under the same conditions which may have affected the results. As adults watched in

a group their focus may not have been entrained on the video but distractions from other

people. In both previously mentioned studies participants experienced the touch event

separately, this could explain why adults scored different to other studies conducted whilst

children performed similarly to the Willcock et al. (2006) and Morgan et al. (2013) studies.

To overcome this, a solution could be to have the adult participants watch the video

individually like the child participants did and to interview them right after similar to this

experiment.

A second limitation is that both children and adults in this experiment were asked to

describe the touch of someone else rather than themselves. This is not a realistic

representation of what would occur as interviews would be about the participant. This may

explain why adults’ results did not correspond with Morgan et al. (2013) study which showed

that although adults score decreased using body maps, they still got more correct and had a

higher accuracy than children. This may be because in the Morgan et al. (2013) study adults

and children were touched by the wizard rather than watching a video of the wizard. As a

result, it is possible that being physically touched leads to better accuracy and correct

touches. To overcome this limitation, the experiment could be conducted with the adults and

participants themselves being dressed up by another person.

Exploring boding map research further could include investigating the effect of body

maps on a different age group. As seen in past studies and this study, body maps are not

effective for young children due to their inability to recognise the drawing as themselves but

as seen through the Morgan et al. (2013) children aged 9 – 10 had more correct answers using

a body map. This could be showing that although body maps are not good for young children
and adults, they may aid children who are somewhere in the middle. As a result, it may be

worth investigating further into whether maps could provide aid for children in the age group

11 -14 years old as they can recognise the drawing represents themselves but may still have

trouble describing what happened to them.

The implication of this study is that body maps are not effective for young children

and adults. Children and adults both got less than half touch locations correct, and both had

low accuracy. This indicates that body maps do not necessarily help elicit more information

of higher accuracy from children and adults. An application would, therefore, be to have

professionals explore other non-verbal techniques such as props and showing on the child’s

own body to elicit important information from children in clinical and criminal situations.

Overall findings from this study showed that body maps are not an effective non-

verbal technique to elicit more information from young children about touch. An experiment

was conducted where a video was played for adult and child participants who then used body

maps to reference where the person in the video was touched. Results from this experiment

showed that children and adults who use body maps got less than half touches correct with

low accuracy scores as well. These findings are also consistent with Morgan et al. (2013) and

partially consistent with Morgan et al. (2013) study. Therefore, it is best for clinicians and

lawyers etc., to use different non-verbal techniques to enhance the quality and quantity of

information given by young children.

 References

Department of Psychology (2021, August 2). Interview Techniques. PowerPoint slide

presented `in Psychology 112, University of Otago

Laboratory Notes: Psychology 112 (2021). Dunedin: Department of Psychology, University

of Otago.

Morgan, K., Dorgan, K. & Hayne, H. (2013). Body maps do not facilitate older children’s

report of touch. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 54, 51–55.

Willcock, E., Morgan, K., & Hayne, H. (2006). Body maps do not facilitate children’s reports

of touch. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 607–615.