The effect of questioning on young children's memory for an event

The effect of adult questioning on young children's memory for an event was examined. Three groups of 4- and 5-year-old children experienced two special events. The questioning group was then asked a set of questions about one of the events on four different occasions over a 7-week period. At the end of the 7 weeks, all children were tested for recall of the two events. The experience of answering questions enhanced the memory performance of the children in the questioning group. However, comparison of the performance of the questioning group with that of two control groups showed that their memory improvement was extremely specific: (a) The questioning group did better only on the specific questions they had been repeatedly asked, (b) There was no general enhancement of recall; they were no better on new questions about the same event, (c) The enhancement was not specific to the experience of retrieving information from long-term memory; the performance of a control group with no long-term memory demands was almost identical to that of the questioning group. The results of this study support the view that adult questioning of young children enhances memory for the specific information about which questions have been asked, but it does not have generalized effects on memory performance or development.     

Children's memory for a personally experienced event: Implications for testimony

This study was prompted by an interest in children's abilities to testify in legal settings. Based on the fundamental premise that children cannot provide accurate testimony about events that cannot be remembered, this investigation focused on 3- and 6-year-olds' memory of a salient, personally experienced event. The event selected was that of a visit to the doctor for a physical examination. Children at both ages remembered most of the features of the check-up at an immediate memory test, although the older children performed somewhat better than younger children. In addition, the performance of the 3-year-olds decreased over delay intervals of 1 and 3 weeks, whereas that of the 6-year-olds remained constant over this period. Moreover, at all assessment points the older children provided more information in response to open-ended general questions than did the younger children. Both groups of children were quite good at giving accurate responses to misleading questions, although the 3-year-olds performed below the level of 6-year-olds. The need for further controlled studies of children's memory capabilities is discussed.     

Comparing methods of encountering post‐event information: the power of co‐witness suggestion

The current study compared the effects of co‐witness information on memory with more widely studied methods of encountering post‐event information. Participants were shown a crime video and then exposed to both correct and incorrect post‐event information about the video through one of four methods: (1) leading questions, (2) media report, (3) indirect co‐witness information, or (4) co‐witness discussion. There was also a control condition in which participants did not receive any post‐event information. All participants were individually tested on their memories for the event 1 week later. Results suggest that co‐witness information had a particularly strong influence on eyewitness memory, whether encountered through co‐witness discussion or indirectly through a third party. That is, participants were more likely to report co‐witness information than post‐event information encountered through leading questions or a media report. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Talking about parts of a past experience: The impact of discussion style and event structure on memory for discussed and nondiscussed information

This experiment examined the impact of selective postevent discussion of high- and low-elaborative styles on 5- and 6-year-olds' (N = 47) memory for discussed and nondiscussed aspects of a staged event ("Visiting the Pirate"). The event contained both logically and arbitrarily connected scenes. Discussion was spaced over 3 days, and memory was assessed 1 day later. Compared with a no-discussion condition, memory for discussed information was enhanced after high- but not low-elaborative discussion for both logically and arbitrarily connected scenes. For arbitrarily connected scenes, memory for nondiscussed aspects was impaired relative to the no-discussion condition, with the degree of impairment being equal after high- and low-elaborative discussion. In contrast, for logically connected scenes, memory for nondiscussed information was not impaired after discussion of either style.     

The information effect: constructive memory, testimony, and epistemic luck

The incorporation of post-event testimonial information into an agent’s memory representation of the event via constructive memory processes gives rise to the misinformation effect, in which the incorporation of inaccurate testimonial information results in the formation of a false memory belief. While psychological research has focussed primarily on the incorporation of inaccurate information, the incorporation of accurate information raises a particularly interesting epistemological question: do the resulting memory beliefs qualify as knowledge? It is intuitively plausible that they do not, for they appear to be only luckily true. I argue, however, that, despite its intuitive plausibility, this view is mistaken: once we adopt an adequate (modal) conception of epistemic luck and an adequate (adaptive) general approach to memory, it becomes clear that memory beliefs resulting from the incorporation of accurate testimonial information are not in general luckily true. I conclude by sketching some implications of this argument for the psychology of memory, suggesting that the misinformation effect would better be investigated in the context of a broader “information effect”.     

When Baby Maisy came to school: Mothers' interview styles and preschoolers' event memories

Fifteen 4–5-year-old children experienced a surprise event in their classroom — the visit of their former teacher and her new baby. The same day, children were interviewed about the event by their mothers, who had not been present and were naive to details. Mothers questioned their children in whatever way they wished. Three weeks later, children were interviewed by a researcher who had not been present during the original event and who had no information about the content of the parent–child interviews. Results showed that mothers' conversational style predicted the amount of information children provided during the mother–child interview, which in turn predicted how much accurate information children remembered during the researcher–child interview. The findings suggest that parent–child memory talk affects children's long-term memory reports, even when parents do not share in the event and have no knowledge of its details.     

Individual differences in event memory: A case for nonstrategic factors

Individual differences in event free recall (episodic memory) and in item generation fluency (semantic memory) were investigated during the course of three studies. The findings suggested that, in addition to two specific factors, an episodic and a semantic factor, performance on both kinds of memory tasks had some dependency on a general factor. A case is made for interpreting all three factors as nonstrategic factors.     

Understanding the emotional past: relations between parent and child contributions in emotionally negative and nonnegative events

The past event conversations of 33 mothers with their 3-year-old children (18 girls and 15 boys) were selected from a larger sample based on their discussion of negative events. Negative events included both those that were negative in topic and those that contained negative incidents but were otherwise positively themed. Within-subjects comparisons were made between the negative events and a neutral or positive event. There were few differences in how mothers and their children talked about negative and nonnegative events. Children did include more interpretations (internal state and causal references) in their negative event conversations. For both event types, mothers who talked more about the past events had children who reported more. When maternal talkativeness was controlled, involving children in the negative event conversations through deflecting the conversational turn predicted children's total contributions and number of interpretations. Repeating information and requests for information while constraining the topic was negatively related to the number of details children reported for nonnegative past events. Conversations about minor negative experiences demonstrate that mothers can influence children's involvement in discussions and understanding of the past.     

Representational momentum and event course anticipation in the perception of implied periodical motions.

After viewing an object in an implied rotation, subjects' short-term visual memory for the object's position is distorted in the direction of rotation. Previous accounts of this representational momentum effect have emphasized the analogy to physical momentum. This study provides a more general perspective: Position memory is influenced by anticipatory processes related to the future event course. In Experiment 1, subjects are presented with an implied periodical event in which a rectangle rotates back and forth. When a direction change in the implied rotation can be anticipated, memory distortion size drops back to zero. Experiment 2 rejects an alternative explanation for the findings of Experiment 1 in terms of enhanced position memory caused by repeated presentations of the memory pattern orientation within the same trial. In Experiment 3, the periods of the implied event are marked by changes in velocity rather than direction. The anticipation of a sudden velocity increase leads to a larger memory shift. We conclude that the perceptual system anticipates the event course on the basis of a representation of the higher order event structure rather than the local motion characteristics.     

Effects of mothers’ conversation style and receipt of misinformation on children's event reports

Can memory sharing conversations with mothers lead to errors in children's event memory when mothers are exposed to misinformation about what their children experienced and does this effect vary as a function of maternal memory-sharing style? Mothers were exposed to a false suggestion about a non-shared event and then discussed that event with their children. When later interviewed, those children whose mothers were provided this misinformation were likely to wrongly report experiencing activities consistent with the maternal suggestion and embellish their reports of these activities with elaborative detail. Moreover, children whose mothers spoke in a highly elaborative manner were more likely to recall occurrences in line with the maternal suggestion and provided more fictitious narrative detail describing non-occurring-but-suggested information than did children whose mothers used a less elaborative style. These findings suggest that when mothers hold false beliefs about a non-shared event, an elaborative maternal style is associated with an increase in children's false reports reflecting maternal beliefs.     

On-line processing of topic structure by children and adults

A recent model of text processing proposed that adults construct a representation of topics during reading; a new topic is related to the representation as soon as relevant information is encountered. The present experiment tested the generality of this model for younger readers. Fourth- and sixth-grade children and college students read two hierarchically organized expository texts while reading times were recorded for initial topic sentences and specific nontopic sentences. Across ages, the major findings were (1) topic sentence reading times were shorter if a transition question informed the reader of the next topic; (2) topic sentence reading times were shorter if the new topic was directly related to the immediately preceding topic than if it was not directly related. Reading times for nontopic sentences were not affected by these manipulations. Reading times decreased as age increased, but text structure manipulations had very similar effects at all ages. The results are consistent with the general model, indicating that even young readers identify and relate expository text topics as they read.     

Dividing attention during a witnessed event increases eyewitness suggestibility

Real‐life witnesses often encounter complex situations that may prevent them from devoting their full attention to encoding forensically‐relevant information about the event. Although prior research has demonstrated that divided attention can impair aspects of event memory, the current study examined the effect of attention during encoding of the event on participants' memory for the source of post‐event misleading information. Participants first viewed a slide sequence depicting a theft under full or divided attention conditions. Subsequently, they answered questions about the event that included misleading information, and finally received a source test. Results revealed that Divided Attention participants showed poorer memory for event items and were more likely to misattribute post‐event misinformation to the event than were Full Attention participants. The findings suggest that typical laboratory conditions (which allow full deployment of attentional resources during encoding) may underestimate the suggestibility of witnesses. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards a general theory of representation

Summary The models of science are representations of a part of reality. Every science has its own specific rules of constructing models, but there are many common rules that must be followed. These rules are to be part of what may be called a general theory of representation. This paper discusses some general aspects of representation that must be considered before such a general theory can be created. There are five sections: (1) an introduction to the topic of representation in general; (2) an overview of some general types of representation, such as goal-directed and self-organizational representations; (3) a short discussion of representation in some specific disciplines; (4) some formal aspects of representations; and (5) a discussion of epistemological aspects of representation, especially scientific reduction and mental causation.This paper was written during participation in the Research Project Mind and Brain, at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld, BRD.     

The effects of a task-irrelevant visual event on spatial working memory

In the present experiment, we investigated whether the memory of a location is affected by the occurrence of an irrelevant visual event. Participants had to memorize the location of a dot. During the retention interval, a task-irrelevant stimulus was presented with abrupt onset somewhere in the visual field. Results showed that the spatial memory representation was affected by the occurrence of the external irrelevant event relative to a control condition in which there was no external event. Specifically, the memorized location was shifted toward the location of the task-irrelevant stimulus. This effect was only present when the onset was close in space to the memory representation. These findings suggest that the “internal” spatial map used for keeping a location in spatial working memory and the “external” spatial map that is affected by exogenous events in the outside world are either the same or tightly linked.     

Suggestibility effects persist after one year in children who experienced a single or repeated event

The study of long-term memory for repeated events has important implications for understanding autobiographical memory in a forensic context. Recall accuracy and suggestibility for details of an instance of a repeated event versus a single event were examined in children aged 5–6 and 7–8 years after a one-year delay. Children who reported an instance of a repeated event were more likely to report that a non-experienced detail had occurred and reported less correct information than did single-event children. After one year a significant suggestibility effect was still present. The present experiment provides further evidence for both the capabilities and limitations of children's long-term recall and reinforces the importance of non-suggestive interviews of children at all stages of investigation.     

Adults also have difficulty recalling one instance of a repeated event

Some forms of abuse, such as domestic violence, tend to occur repeatedly. Although memory for repeated events has received considerable empirical attention, most of this research has used a child sample. Experiments that have examined adult repeated‐event memory tend to use vastly different methodological paradigms to that used for children. To investigate whether the same pattern of findings emerge with young adults, we adapted the methodological paradigm used in child repeated‐event experiments. In this experiment, 41 undergraduate students experienced one, or multiple similar events. All participants were then interviewed about the same event. Participants who had experienced a single‐event were more likely to report correct details than those who had experienced a repeated event. Repeated‐event participants were more likely to report general details. These results have implications for the methodological paradigm which is used to examine adult memory for a recurring event.     

Perceptual and memorial constructs in children's judgments of quantity: a law of across-representation invariance

Children at three different ages made judgments of physically presented (perceptual estimation) or symbolically represented (memorial estimation) rectangles. Height and width were integrated according to different, age-dependent algebraic rules. Memorial data obeyed the same integration rules that operated in the original perceptual judgments even when younger children and older children used completely different combination models. Valuation operations were the same in perception and memory for the youngest group (6-year-olds) but became discriminably different at older ages (for the 8- and 10-year olds). Three additional experiments on judgments of volume, liquid quantity, and visual length yielded strong cross-validation support for the general invariance claim (with respect to integration rule theory) but less strong support for the specific invariance claim (with respect to valuation function for the 6-year-old subjects). Results are interpreted as demonstrating lawful and long-enduring ecological constraints on internal representation.