Reducing child witnesses' false reports of misinformation from parents.
This study explored whether a source-monitoring training (SMT) procedure, in which children distinguished between events they recently witnessed versus events they only heard described, would help 3- to 8-year-olds to report only experienced events during a target interview. Children (N = 132) who witnessed science demonstrations and subsequently heard their parents describe nonexperienced events received SMT before or after a forensic-style interview. SMT reduced the number of false reports that 7- and 8-year-old children reported in response to direct questions but had no impact on the performance of younger children. Combined with earlier results, these data suggest a transition between 3 and 8 years of age in the strategic use of source-monitoring information to support verbal reports, such that only 7- and 8-year-olds generalize training to a difficult memory task that does not include mention of specific alternative sources.
Poole
Debra Ann
DA
Department of Psychology, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant 48859, USA. poole1da@mail.cmich.edu
Lindsay
D Stephen
DS
D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003415:Crime / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D013404:Suggestion