Minimising misinformation effects in young children with cognitive interview mnemonics

This research evaluated the effect of several variations of a Cognitive interview on 4–5‐year‐old children's correct recall and subsequent reporting of misinformation. Children viewed an event followed by misinformation that was read or self‐generated before a Cognitive interview. Children were then given recognition tests under inclusion and exclusion instructions. Developmentally modified Cognitive interviews elicited significantly more correct details than control interviews. A Cognitive interview given after misinformation reduced children's reporting of misinformation at interview and reduced reporting of self‐generated misinformation on memory tests. Moreover, this research shows that the report all and context reinstatement Cognitive interview mnemonics in combination can offer some protection against the negative effect of misinformation when given after such misinformation. Process dissociation analyses revealed that both recollection and familiarity contributed to children's reporting of misinformation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Drawings as memory aids: Optimising the drawing method to facilitate young children's recall

There has been supportive evidence of drawing facilitating young children's event recall. The present study investigated whether additional event details are recalled if the interviewer uses interactive questions in response to information children have spontaneously drawn or verbally reported. Eighty 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds were shown a video clip of a novel event and were interviewed the following day. The children were randomly allocated to one of four recall conditions: tell‐only, draw‐and‐tell, interactive draw‐and‐tell and interactive tell‐only. The children's verbal reports were transcribed and scored on four different categories of recall: items (objects and people), actions, colours and sayings. The interactive draw‐and‐tell group recalled more correct information for items compared to the other three recall groups, without any accompanying increase in errors. We propose that drawing increases the opportunity for the interviewer to ask interactive questions, which in turn facilitates children's accurate recall of item information. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of the physical context in supporting young children's use of spatiotemporal organization in recall

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the role of the physical context in supporting 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds' use of spatiotemporal organization in recall. Children were familiarized with several target items and their corresponding landmarks arranged along a path in a model park. After familiarization, an experimenter removed the target items from the park. In Experiment 1, 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds recalled the missing items with the park either in view or out of view. When the park model was in view, 4‐ year‐olds used the order of the items along the path to structure their recall. In Experiment 2, 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds recalled the missing items with the landmarks arranged either in the same order as in familiarization or in a new order. Children used the order of landmarks along the path at test to structure their recall, even though the order of landmarks changed from familiarization to test. Experiment 3 was identical to Experiment 2, except that the path was removed from the park. Five‐year‐olds used the order of landmarks along the path at test to structure their recall when the order of landmarks remained the same from familiarization to test, but had much more difficulty doing so when the order of landmarks changed from familiarization to test. Using a more difficult task, Experiment 4 revealed that spatiotemporal organization was positively related to amount recalled. Together, these findings suggest that the structure of the physical environment plays an important role in supporting young children's use of spatiotemporal organization in recall.     

The effect of repeated experience on children's suggestibility across two question types

There is a discrepancy in the literature regarding the effect of repeated experience on children's suggestibility. Some researchers have concluded that repeated experience increases children's suggestibility for variable details whereas others have reported no detrimental effect. This study demonstrated that the type of question used to test memory (cued‐recall versus yes/no questions) could account for the different reported conclusions. Children aged 5–6 years took part in an event either once or four times. Three or 21 days later, they were given a suggestive interview about the single/final occurrence of the event during which half of the event details were inaccurately described. When later asked yes/no questions, the children with repeated experience agreed with more of the suggestions than did those in the single‐experience condition, especially at the longer delay. In relation to cued‐recall questions, however, experience did not mediate the number of times that false suggestions from the biasing interview were reported. This latter finding was revealed irrespective of the retention interval. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Awareness of the origin of knowledge predicts child witnesses' recall of alleged sexual and physical abuse

Children who understand that knowledge may have different origins produce more information in their free‐recall accounts than children who are less aware of source. We examined whether the tendency to make knowledge attributions was related to the number and proportion of details elicited from child witnesses using open‐ended invitations and whether this relationship varied depending on the number of incidents of abuse reported. The tendency to make knowledge attributions was measured in the presubstantive portion of protocol‐guided interviews with 3‐ to 11‐year‐old alleged victims of abuse. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the production of knowledge attribution details was positively related to the proportion of substantive episodic details produced by 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds recalling a single incident and by 3‐ to 11‐year‐olds recalling multiple incidents of abuse. Presubstantive source details were also positively correlated with the amount of source information recalled about incidents of abuse. These findings remained significant after controlling for the children's verbosity, the relative prominence of open‐ended invitations, and the children's ages. © 2003 US Government work.     

The influence of an early interview on long‐term recall: a comparative analysis

Because of burgeoning participation by children in forensic situations there is significant concern about children's memory for stressful events. Influence of timing of the first interview and interview frequency on long‐term recall were evaluated by comparing three groups of 3‐ to 9‐year‐olds 1 year after an injury requiring emergency room treatment. One group had one interview, a year after injury; another group had two interviews, immediately and a year later; the third group had three interviews, immediately, 6 months and a year after injury. The type of event and timing of the initial interview influenced completeness and accuracy of recall after 1 year. All children showed extensive recall but having an immediate interview was associated with greater completeness and accuracy for 3–4‐year‐olds but not older children. This suggests a social influence: a highly structured and organized early interview may have beneficial effects on memory for preschoolers. Implications for questioning and testimony are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Event frequency and children's suggestibility: a study of cued recall responses

Research examining the effect of repeated experience on children's suggestibility for particular kinds of information has produced differing results. In one study, responses to recognition questions revealed heightened suggestibility for variable details in children who repeatedly experienced an event compared to children who experienced an event once. In other studies, no such effect was found with cued recall. In this study, 4–5‐year old children engaged in one or four play sessions. Children were later given a biasing interview wherein half of the details were incorrectly represented. Children were then given a final memory test using free and cued recall prompts that was preceded by one of three instruction types: no special instructions, moderate instructions, or opposition instructions. Children in the repeated‐event condition were more suggestible than those in the single‐event condition, regardless of instructions. No significant differences in suggestibility were found across instructions conditions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhancing children's event recall after long delays

The effects of context reinstatement as means of enhancing 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children's event memory in repeated interviews after a 6‐month delay were examined. Children were interviewed immediately after the event (baseline interview) and twice at a 6‐month delay, with 24 hours between interviews. The first 6‐month interview was conducted in a perfect‐context reinstatement (n = 15), imperfect‐context reinstatement (n = 16), or no‐context reinstatement (n = 15) condition. The second 6‐month interview was conducted 24 hours later with no‐context reinstatement for all children. Context reinstatement attenuated the effects of delay on recall. The accuracy of the details reported was greater in the perfect‐context compared to the imperfect‐context and no‐context conditions. Details repeated between the immediate‐baseline interview and in the first 6‐month interview were more accurate than details repeated between the first and second 6‐month interview. There was no increase in recall (hypermnesia) across the first and second 6‐month interviews in any condition. Practical implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do better stories make better memories? Narrative quality and memory accuracy in preschool children

The present study examines how the quality of children's narratives relates to the accuracy of those narratives. Sixty‐one 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds played a novel game with a researcher in their schools. Children were questioned in an interview that included an open‐ended free recall prompt followed by a series of directed questions. Children's narratives were coded for volume, complexity and cohesion as well as for accuracy. Correlational results showed that overall, narrative skills enable the reporting of more information, while decreasing the proportion of information that was accurate. These results appeared to be driven by a quantity‐accuracy trade‐off; in an ensuing regression analysis with all narrative variables entered into the model, volume was associated with decreases in accuracy while narrative cohesion was associated with increases in accuracy. We discuss the results in terms of their relationship to the development of autobiographical memory as well as implications for forensic contexts. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of intervening experiences on children's memory for a physical examination

To examine the extent to which children's long‐term retention is influenced (both positively and negatively) by intervening events, the impact of three programmed experiences on later recall of the details of a physical examination was explored. Four groups of 3‐ and 5‐year‐olds were established, with all children being interviewed immediately after their check‐ups and then again after 12 weeks. The groups, however, differed in terms of their experiences midway through the delay interval. At each age level, children in three experimental groups received either a complete interview about the physical examination, a return visit to the pediatrician's office, or an opportunity to view a videotape that showed a child receiving an actual check‐up. Children in a fourth group served as controls in that they were not seen during the delay period. Recall of standard features was scored, along with responses to questions concerning procedures that did not occur. The results indicated mixed mnemonic effects for the differential intervening experiences. In comparison to the control group, children at each age who had received an additional interview or who had observed the videotape showed elevated open‐ended recall at the 12‐week interview. In addition, the videotape manipulation, as well as the return visit to the doctor's office, was associated with a marked decrease in the 5‐ but not the 3‐year‐olds' accuracy regarding questions about activities not included in the physical examinations. The results are discussed in terms of factors that affect the facilitation and distortion of memory over long temporal delays. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do early interviews affect children's long‐term event recall?

The present study examined the effects of the timing of an initial interview on children's recall of an event over delays of 1 and 2 years. Fifty‐five children who had originally participated in a novel event when they were between 5‐ and 6‐years old and had been interviewed about it following either short (1 week or less) or long (1 or 6 month) delays were re‐interviewed 1 and 2 years after the original experience. An additional 20 children not interviewed prior to the 1‐year interview were included as a no‐prior‐interview control group. Long delays to the initial interview led to better open‐ended recall at the 1‐year delay than short delays to initial interview or no prior interview. However, initial interviews that followed short delays had a greater impact on children's responses to specific questions. The results suggest that prior interview history is an important consideration when examining the effects of long delays on children's event reports, and that the effects of the timing of an initial interview depend on the nature of the information recalled. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mental reinstatement of the misinformation context and the misinformation effect in children and adults

The present study investigated the effects of mental reinstatement of the context in which misleading information about an event was presented on later recognition memory for the event. Five‐year‐olds, 7‐year‐olds and adults were shown a short video depicting a children's adventure and were asked a set of misleading questions to introduce misinformation one week later. Before the recognition memory test was administered another week later, half of the participants were given instructions to mentally reinstate the context of the misleading interview. Memory was assessed with a set of forced‐choice recognition questions once in the misleading interview context and for the children a second time at home one week later. When participants were instructed to mentally reinstate the context of the misleading interview prior to the recognition test, false memory reports occurred more often for adults than for children and had a stronger impact on peripheral information than on central information for both 7‐year‐olds and adults. When 5‐ and 7‐year‐olds were tested at home, false memory reports decreased. Thus, reinstating the context of an interview introducing misinformation can reduce the accuracy of memory reports; the context dependence of both accurate and inaccurate memory reports in children and adults is discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parent–child talk and children's memory for stressful events

The relationship between parents' styles of talking about past events with their children and children's recall of stressful events was explored. In this investigation, 2‐ to 5‐year‐old children's recall of injuries requiring hospital emergency room treatment was assessed within a few days of the injury and again 2 years later, along with the way their parents reminisced with them about the event. Correlational analyses showed that age and parental reminiscing style were consistently related to child memory; regression analyses showed that although age was most important, parents who were more elaborative had children who recalled more during their initial interview about the harder‐to‐remember hospital event. Thus, an elaborative parental style may help children's recall of even highly salient and stressful events. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recounting the same events again and again: children's consistency across multiple interviews

Children (2–13 years at time of injury) were interviewed four times about an injury that required hospital Emergency Room treatment, namely at 1 week, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years. The consistency of children's reports was assessed and all children gave mostly the same information at each interview, although consistency was higher for older children and for injury rather than hospital details. Furthermore, details recalled at every interview were virtually always accurate while details that were sometimes omitted were a little less likely to be accurate. New information that was introduced after 6 months was more likely to be accurate than inaccurate but new information introduced at 1 or 2 years post‐injury was just as likely to be wrong as right (except for 12–13‐year‐olds). Implications for forensic situations are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Event report training: An examination of the efficacy of a new intervention to improve children's eyewitness reports

This study tested the efficacy of Event Report Training (ERT), a training procedure designed to improve children's memory reports and decrease suggestibility. Children (N = 58) participated in two forensically relevant play events. Two weeks later, children received ERT or participated in control procedures, after which they received a memory interview. Results indicated that ERT decreased suggestibility to abuse‐related questions in preschoolers; their responses were highly accurate and age differences were eliminated. ERT did not increase the amount of information preschoolers provided in response to open‐ended questions. However, with ERT 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds reported 32% more information which included a 32% increase in actions, without an accompanying increase in incorrect information. Due to school‐aged children's high accuracy rates, it was impossible to gauge the effectiveness of ERT in reducing suggestibility. The failure to obtain an effect of ERT in preschoolers' open‐ended recall is discussed in terms of their cognitive‐developmental limitations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Automatic and intentional processes in children's recognition memory: the reversed misinformation effect

This study investigated the contribution of automatic and intentional memory processes to 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children's suggestible responses in a reversed misinformation paradigm. The temporal order of the conventional eyewitness paradigm was altered such that children were initially presented with a pre‐event narrative containing misinformation that was either read to them or was self‐generated in response to semantic and linguistic cues, and the following day were presented with a witnessed event in the form of a picture story. Children then completed a standard forced‐choice recognition memory test under two instruction conditions. In the inclusion condition children were reminded about the presentations of the pre‐event narrative and the original story and asked to chose the witnessed event item. In the exclusion condition children were instructed to exclude pre‐event suggestions. Suggestibility effects were found with the magnitude of such effects differentially affected by the encoding of misleading suggestions and test instructions. In the exclusion condition, children were more likely to correctly reject suggestions that were ‘self‐generated’. Both automaticity and intentional recollection contributed to children's suggestible responding. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children's and adults' recall of children's news stories in both print and audio‐visual presentation modalities

Research into adults' recall from different presentation modalities has demonstrated a recall advantage for print over television yet recent research indicates that children remember television news better than print news. An experiment was conducted by comparing children's and adults' recall of children's news stories presented in two different modalities, television and print, in order to establish whether children's recall advantage for television is dependent on their age or level of reading proficiency. A sample of 40 adults, 40 13‐year‐olds and 40 11‐year‐olds were presented with children's news stories, either in their original televised form or in a print version. All participants were aware they would be tested for recall. The results of the cued recall test indicated that children from both age groups learned more from the television news than from the print versions, regardless of age or reading proficiency and that adults remembered equal amounts from both presentation modalities. For the 11‐year‐olds the advantage of television was only found for information that had been accompanied by redundant pictures in the televised version, providing support for the dual‐coding hypothesis. For 13‐year‐olds the recall of television was not dependent on the addition of redundant visual information. Viewers and readers were found to invest the same amounts of mental effort, but reported levels of invested mental effort were found to be dependent on age and level of reading proficiency. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The tooth,the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth: how belief in the Tooth Fairy can engender false memories

To examine how children's fantasy beliefs can affect memory for their experiences, 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds with differing levels of belief in the reality of the Tooth Fairy were prompted to recall their most recent primary tooth loss in either a truthful or fun manner. Many of the children who fully believed in the existence of the Tooth Fairy reported supernatural experiences consistent with the myth under both sets of recall instructions, whereas those who realized the fictionality of the myth recalled mainly realistic experiences. However, those children with equivocal beliefs evidenced a different pattern under each set of instructions, recalling mainly realistic experiences when asked to be truthful and reporting many fantastical experiences when prompted to relate the tooth loss in a fun manner. These findings suggest that children's beliefs in the reality of fantastic phenomena can give rise to genuine constructive memory errors in line with their fantasies. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.