title: Developmental differences in eyewitness suggestibility and memory for source.
abstract: To what extent do children who report suggested information believe they actually remember seeing the suggested details they report? Asking whether children misremember seeing suggested items is in essence a question about children's ability to monitor the source of their memories. The current study reports the results of two experiments designed to assess potential age-related changes in subjects' ability to accurately monitor the source of suggested information either immediately or following a 1-week delay. The results of both experiments revealed that although all subjects claimed to remember seeing suggested items, the magnitude of this effect varied with age such that first-graders made more source confusions than third- and fifth-graders, who in turn made more confusions than college subjects. Our findings suggest that these age differences are not simply a function of more general age-related memory or performance deficits, but instead reflect developmental differences in the tendency to confuse suggested information for actually witnessed events.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN 56082, USA.
authors.forename: J K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Ackil
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Zaragoza
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D011936:Reality Testing; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D013404:Suggestion; D014796:Visual Perception