The strategic regulation of children's memory performance and suggestibility

We report two empirical studies that investigated previously reported benefits of a high accuracy motivation, and thus a high threshold, for children's and adults' event recall and for their ability to resist false suggestions. In the studies, 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds, as well as adults, were shown a brief video about an event and were later asked unbiased and misleading questions about it. In Study 1, participants were either (a) given the typical accuracy instructions (including the option to answer with "I don't know"), (b) reminded of the accuracy instructions during the interview, or (c) immediately given feedback and a token for every correct answer. The results showed that the reminders were ineffective in stimulating strategic control behavior in children, independent of age. In Study 2, the confounding effects of feedback and incentives were disentangled by contrasting (a) free report, (b) feedback only, (c) incentives only, and (d) feedback plus incentives. Analyses on recall performance and suggestibility revealed that both feedback and incentives are necessary to increase children's accurate memory reports.     

"It's magic!" The effects of presentation modality on children's event memory, suggestibility, and confidence judgments

The current study investigated the influence of presentation modality (live, video, and slide show) on children's memory, suggestibility, recognition, and metamemorial monitoring processes. A total of 270 children in three age groups (5- and 6-year-olds, 7- and 8-year-olds, and 9- and 10-year-olds) watched a magic show and were questioned about it 1 week later. The live show yielded more correct answers to nonleading questions, higher resistance to misleading questions, and better recognition memory than did the video condition, which in turn resulted in better performance than did the slide show. Although presentation modality raised the general level of memory performance, the effects were equally strong in all age groups and did not affect memory phenomena such as the size of the misinformation effect and confidence judgments.     

The role of attachment and cognitive inhibition in children's memory and suggestibility for a stressful event

There has been increasing interest in children's abilities to report memories of and resist misleading suggestions about distressing events. Individual differences among children and their parents may provide important insight into principles that govern children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility for such experiences. In the present study, 51 children between the ages of 3 and 7 years were interviewed about an inoculation after a delay of approximately 2 weeks. Results indicated that parents' attachment Avoidance was associated with children's distress during the inoculation. Parental attachment Anxiety and the interaction between parental Avoidance and children's stress predicted children's memory for the inoculation. Cognitive inhibition was also a significant predictor of children's memory errors and suggestibility. Theoretical implications concerning effects of stress and individual differences on children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility are discussed.     

Event memory and suggestibility in abused and neglected children: trauma-related psychopathology and cognitive functioning

This study examined event memory and suggestibility in 3- to 16-year-olds involved in forensic investigations of child maltreatment. A total of 322 children were interviewed about a play activity with an unfamiliar adult. Comprehensive measures of individual differences in trauma-related psychopathology and cognitive functioning were administered. Sexually and/or physically abused children obtained higher dissociation scores than neglected children, and sexually abused children were more likely to obtain a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder than physically abused children, neglected children, and children with no substantiated abuse histories. Overall, older children and children with better cognitive functioning produced more correct information and fewer memory errors. Abuse status per se did not significantly predict children’s memory or suggestibility whether considered alone or in interaction with age. However, among highly dissociative children, more trauma symptoms were associated with greater inaccuracy, whereas trauma symptoms were not associated with increased error for children who were lower in dissociative tendencies. Implications of the findings for understanding eyewitness memory in maltreated children are discussed.     

Knowing in advance: the impact of prior event information on memory and event knowledge

We examined the influence of newly acquired information on children's memory and general representation of a personally experienced event. Thirty-five children between the ages of 5 and 7 years participated in the novel event (Visiting the Pirate). The day before participating, children were: (1) provided with new information specific to the up-coming event; (2) engaged in a discussion generally related to the event topic based on existing knowledge; or (3) discussed an unrelated topic. Advance information specific to the event led to better recall and, in particular, to better integration of the experience into a general event representation both soon after the event and at a follow-up interview 4 months later, whereas general discussion of the topic without the event specific information neither enhanced memory reports nor facilitated the integration of event information. Providing information in advance can have significant effects on memory and knowledge acquisition although many variables, including those relating to the specific content of the information, will affect this relation.     

Memory and suggestibility in maltreated children: age,stress arousal,dissociation, and psychopathology

The present study was designed to assess children's memory and suggestibility in the context of ongoing child maltreatment investigations. One hundred eighty-nine 3-17-year-olds involved in evaluations of alleged maltreatment were interviewed with specific and misleading questions about an anogenital examination and clinical assessment. For the anogenital examination, children's stress arousal was indexed both behaviorally and physiologically. For all children, individual-difference data were gathered on intellectual and short-term memory abilities, general psychopathology, and dissociative tendencies. Interviewers' ratings were available for a subset of children concerning the amount of detail provided in abuse disclosures. Results indicated that general psychopathology, short-term memory, and intellectual ability predicted facets of children's memory performance. Older compared to younger children evinced fewer memory errors and greater suggestibility resistance. Age was also significantly related to the amount of detail in children's abuse disclosures. Neither dissociation nor stress arousal significantly predicted children's memory. Implications for understanding maltreated children's eyewitness memory are discussed.     

Rumor mongering and remembering: how rumors originating in children's inferences can affect memory

This study examined how rumors originating in 3- to 6-year-olds' causal inferences can affect their own and their peers' memories for a personally experienced event. This was accomplished by exposing some members of classrooms to contextual clues that were designed to induce inferences about the causes of two unresolved components of the event. After a 1-week delay, a substantial number of children who were exposed to the clues misremembered their inferences as actual experiences. Causal inferential memory errors were most pronounced among 5- and 6-year-olds. Also, many of the children whose classmates were exposed to the clues mistakenly incorporated their classmates' causal inferences into their own accounts, with 3- and 4-year-olds being most likely to make this error.     

Anxious and nonanxious children's recall of a repeated or unique event

The current study examined 4- and 5-year-olds' memory for an event that was experienced once or was the first in a sequence of four similar events. The event was private swimming lessons for beginners that, because of natural variation in fear of water, were experienced as stressful for some children and not stressful for others. Consistent with much previous research, there was evidence that repeat-event children remembered less than did single-event children. There was some evidence for a beneficial influence of stress on resistance to suggestions. No other effects of stress were found in either the single- or repeat-event children. Implications for the debate on the influence of stress on memory and for children's testimony are discussed.     

Theory of mind, inhibitory control, and preschool-age children's suggestibility in different interviewing contexts

The current study examined the relations among 3- to 5-year-olds' theory of mind, inhibitory control, and three measures of suggestibility: yielding to suggestive questions (yield), shifting answers in response to negative feedback (shift), and accuracy in response to misleading questions during a pressured interview about a live event. Theory of mind aided in the prediction of suggestibility about the live event, and inhibitory control was a moderator variable affecting the consistency of children's sensitivity to social pressure across situations. The findings indicate that theory of mind and inhibitory control predict children's suggestibility about a live event above and beyond yield, shift, and age and that the construct validity of shift may improve as children's inhibitory control develops.     

The effects of repeated experience on children's suggestibility

The effect of suggestive questions on 3- to 5-year-old and 6- to 8-year-old children's recall of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined. The event included fixed (identical) items as well as variable items where a new instantiation represented the item in each occurrence of the series. Relative to reports of children who participated in a single occurrence, children's reports about fixed items of the repeated event were more accurate and less contaminated by false suggestions. For variable items, repeated experience led to a decline in memory of the specific occurrence; however, there was no increase in susceptibility to suggestions about details that had not occurred. Most errors after repeated experience were intrusions of details from nontarget occurrences. Although younger children and children who were interviewed a while after the event were more suggestible, respectively, than older children and those interviewed soon after the event, repeated experience attenuated these effects.     

Age differences in the effects of social influence on children's eyewitness performance and their metacognitive monitoring

The current work investigated the effects of social influence on children's recall accuracy and metacognitive monitoring. Two studies were conducted in which 8- and 10-year-olds were confronted with postevent information in an interview situation. An interviewer (Study 1) or a confederate (Study 2) provided postevent information with two levels of assertiveness, inducing (a) a variation of conformity pressure and (b) a variation of information credibility. Afterwards, children's confidence judgments were assessed. The results revealed significant age differences in children's ability to adequately cope with variations of social influence. Although conformity pressure was especially important for the 8-year-olds, effects of informative social influence were independent of age. However, 10-year-olds were also able to act appropriately on low credibility, thereby demonstrating a more sophisticated consideration of social influence sources. Moreover, varying assertiveness also affected the quality of children's confidence judgments by improving their metacognitive differentiation skills.     

An individual differences approach to the suggestibility of memory over time

We examined how certain personality traits might relate to the formation of suggestive memory over time. We hypothesised that compliance and trust relate to initial acceptance of misinformation as memory, whereas fantasy proneness might relate to integration of misinformation into memory after later intervals (relative to the time of exposure to misinformation). Participants watched an excerpt from a movie—the simulated eyewitness event. They next answered a recall test that included embedded misinformation about the movie. Participants then answered a yes/no recognition test. A week later, participants answered a second yes/no recognition test about the movie (each yes/no recognition test included different questions). Before both recognition tests, participants were warned about the misinformation shown during recall and were asked to base their answer on the movie excerpt only. After completing the second recognition test, participants answered questions from the Neuroticism Extroversion Openness Personality Inventory-3 (McCrae, Costa, & Martin, 2005) and Creative Experiences Questionnaire (Merckelbach, Horselenberg, & Muris, 2001). While compliance correlated with misinformation effects immediately after exposure to misinformation, fantasy-prone personality accounted for more of the variability in false recognition rates than compliance after a 1-week interval.     

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.     

The consistency of false suggestions moderates children's reports of a single instance of a repeated event: predicting increases and decreases in suggestibility

Participants (6- and 7-year-olds, N=130) participated in classroom activities four times. Children were interviewed about the final occurrence (target event) either 1 week or 4 weeks later, during which half of the event items were described inaccurately. Half of these suggestions were consistent with the theme of the detail across the occurrences (e.g., always sat on a kind of floor mat) or were inconsistent (e.g., sat on a chair). When memory for the target event was tested 1 day later, children falsely recognized fewer inconsistent suggestions than consistent suggestions, especially compared with a control group of children who experienced the event just one time. Furthermore, the longer delay reduced accuracy only for consistent suggestions. Source-monitoring ability was strongly and positively related to resistance to suggestions, and encouraging children to identify the source of false suggestions allowed them to retract a significant proportion of their reports of inconsistent suggestions but not of consistent suggestions. The results suggest that the gist consistency of suggestions determines whether event repetition increases or decreases suggestibility.     

Memory performance predicts interrogative suggestibility better than global cognition in older adults with subjective cognitive complaints

The present study aims to investigate to which extent global cognition and verbal memory can estimate interrogative suggestibility (IS) in elderly people with subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs). We used the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS 2) subscales (i.e., Yield 1, Yield 2 and Shift) as measures of IS. Data from a sample of consecutive patients (N = 94) who referred to neuropsychology units for the first time were collected.Our results showed that verbal memory is a better predictor of IS than global cognition. Moreover, memory impairment led to significantly higher IS independently of global cognitive status. These findings suggest that the assessment of verbal memory allows to estimate individual levels of IS better than global cognition, even in elders with objective cognitive deficits. Implications for forensic assessment of senior witnesses are discussed.     

Stereotype threat can reduce older adults' memory errors

Stereotype threat often incurs the cost of reducing the amount of information that older adults accurately recall. In the current research, we tested whether stereotype threat can also benefit memory. According to the regulatory focus account of stereotype threat, threat induces a prevention focus in which people become concerned with avoiding errors of commission and are sensitive to the presence or absence of losses within their environment. Because of this, we predicted that stereotype threat might reduce older adults' memory errors. Results were consistent with this prediction. Older adults under stereotype threat had lower intrusion rates during free-recall tests (Experiments 1 and 2). They also reduced their false alarms and adopted more conservative response criteria during a recognition test (Experiment 2). Thus, stereotype threat can decrease older adults' false memories, albeit at the cost of fewer veridical memories, as well.     

Interference with prior knowledge while writing from sources: Effects of working memory capacity

Writing from sources requires the processing of both external (documentary) and internal (long-term memory; LTM) sources of information, which can sometimes interfere with each other. We hypothesised that writers with high working memory (WM) capacity would resolve interference faster than those with low-capacity WM. However, results showed that writing pause duration was shorter for low-capacity writers. This result suggests that when WM resources are limited, access to domain knowledge in LTM is restricted, thereby avoiding interference between the two sources. Results are discussed within the broader context of text composition from sources and individual differences.     

Maltreated children's memory: accuracy, suggestibility, and psychopathology

Memory, suggestibility, stress arousal, and trauma-related psychopathology were examined in 328 3- to 16-year-olds involved in forensic investigations of abuse and neglect. Children's memory and suggestibility were assessed for a medical examination and venipuncture. Being older and scoring higher in cognitive functioning were related to fewer inaccuracies. In addition, cortisol level and trauma symptoms in children who reported more dissociative tendencies were associated with increased memory error, whereas cortisol level and trauma symptoms were not associated with increased error for children who reported fewer dissociative tendencies. Sexual and/or physical abuse predicted greater accuracy. The study contributes important new information to scientific understanding of maltreatment, psychopathology, and eyewitness memory in children.