The Roles of Prior Experience and the Timing of Misinformation Presentation on Young Children's Event Memories

The current study addressed how the timing of interviews affected children's memories of unique and repeated events. Five- to six-year-olds (N = 125) participated in activities 1 or 4 times and were misinformed either 3 or 21 days after the only or last event. Although single-experience childre...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inChild development Vol. 78; no. 4; pp. 1137 - 1152
Main Authors Roberts, Kim P., Powell, Martine B.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01.07.2007
Blackwell Publishers
Blackwell Publishing
Blackwell
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Subjects
Adults
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child development
Child molestation
Child, Preschool
Children
Clowns
Concept Formation
Conflict (Psychology)
Context Effect
Culture
Developmental psychology
Empirical Articles
Empirical research
Experiential Learning
False information
False memory
Family studies
Female
Forensic science
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Interview, Psychological
Interviews
Male
Memories
Memory
Mental Recall
Misconceptions
Misinformation
Perception
Prior Learning
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reality Testing
Recall (Psychology)
Retention
Retention (Psychology)
Sociological research
Studies
Suggestibility
Suggestion
Summarization
Tests
Time
Time Factors
Time use
Timing
Young Children
Human
Preschool age
Testimony
Suggestibility
Memory
Cognition
False memory
Interview
Acquisition process
School age
Acquired experience
Timing
Child
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The current study addressed how the timing of interviews affected children's memories of unique and repeated events. Five- to six-year-olds (N = 125) participated in activities 1 or 4 times and were misinformed either 3 or 21 days after the only or last event. Although single-experience children were subsequently less accurate in the 21-versus 3-day condition, the timing of the misinformation session did not affect memories of repeated-experience children regarding invariant details. Children were more suggestible in the 21- versus 3-day condition for variable details when the test occurred soon after misinformation presentation. Thus, timing differentially affected memories of single and repeated events and depended on the combination of event-misinformation and misinformation-test delays rather than the overall retention interval.
Bibliography:istex:8ADC4B28A22A274E410072C82B6DB45F0A8ED36E
ark:/67375/WNG-32HNN0Z2-T
ArticleID:CDEV1057
The research was supported by a Large Research Grant (A79924116) to the authors from the Australian Research Council. We are grateful to the children, headteachers, and staff of Wattleview, Parkridge, Knox Gardens, Scoresby, and Livingstone Primary Schools; to the research assistants, Cady Berkel, Catherine Croft, Natasha Anderson, Rachel Same, and Nicole Sirrine; and to Charles Brainerd, Rachel Barr, and Karen Thierry for helpful comments and discussion. A portion of these results was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognition/Societé Canadienne des Sciences du Cerveau, du Comportement et de la Cognition, May/June 2002, in Vancouver, Canada.
ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01057.x