Children's recall 1 or 2 years after an event.
In Study 1, children were reinterviewed about an event they had taken part in 2 years earlier when they were 6 years old (M.-E. Pipe & J. C. Wilson, 1994). In Study 2, children were reinterviewed about an event in which they had participated 1 year earlier when they were 6 or 9 years of age (S. Gee & M.-E. Pipe, 1995). Interviews were conducted with or without cue items and distractors, as in the original studies. The amount of information reported in free recall decreased over the 1- or 2-year delays, and for 6-year-olds, there was also a small decrease in accuracy of free recall. Reinstating specific cue items in Study 2 maintained recall when attention was drawn to them, but prompting children led to a decrease in accuracy. Whereas information repeated across interviews was highly accurate, information reported for the first time at the long delays was not.
Pipe
M E
ME
Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. mepipe@psy.otago.ac.nz
Gee
S
S
Wilson
J C
JC
Egerton
J M
JM
D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D002666:Psychology, Child; D013997:Time Factors