title: Child witnesses' metamemory realism.
abstract: This study investigated the degree of realism in the confidence judgments of 11 to 12-year-olds (41 girls and 40 boys) of their answers to questions relating to a short film clip showing a kidnapping event. Four different confidence scales were used: a numeric scale, a picture scale, a line scale and a written scale. The results demonstrated that the children showed a high level of overconfidence in their memories. However, no significant differences between the four confidence scales were found. Weak gender differences were found in that the girls were slightly, but significantly, better calibrated than the boys. In addition, although both boys and girls overestimated the total number of memory questions they had answered correctly, the boys gave higher estimates compared with the girls. In brief, the results indicate that, at least in the context investigated, 11-12 year-old children's confidence in and estimations of their own event memory show poor realism (overconfidence and overestimation). A comparison with previous research on adults indicates that 11 to 12-year-old children show noticeably poorer realism.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Lund University, Sweden. cma@psychology.lu.se
authors.forename: Carl Martin
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Allwood
authors.forename: Pär Anders
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Granhag
authors.forename: Anna-Carin
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Jonsson
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003415:Crime; D005260:Female; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009040:Motion Pictures; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014743:Videotape Recording