Children's memories of experienced and nonexperienced events following repeated interviews.
The present study compared 3- and 5-year-olds' reports of a true or false play interaction following repeated interviews. Final interviews were conducted either by the same researcher or by a new researcher. Age-related improvements in performance were evident. Also, 3-year-olds questioned repeatedly about an entirely false event made more errors in response to specific questions than 3-year-olds questioned repeatedly about false details of a true event. Five-year-olds who were questioned about the false event, however, were particularly accurate when answering questions about never-experienced body touch. Interviewer familiarity was associated with decreases in the amount of narrative detail 5-year-olds provided in free-recall and with increases in 3-year-olds' accuracy in response to direct questions. Both errors and response latency on a cognitive matching task were related to children's suggestibility.
Quas
Jodi A
JA
Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, 3340 Social Ecology II, Irvine, CA 92697-7085, USA. jquas@uci.edu
Schaaf
Jennifer M
JM
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D013404:Suggestion; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires