Testimony and interrogation of minors: Assumptions about maturity and morality

This article examines the legal histories and social contexts of testimony and interrogation involving minors, developmental research on suggestibility and judgment, interactions between development and legal/sociological contexts, and the reasoning behind how minors are treated in different legal contexts. The authors argue (a) that young witnesses, victims, and suspects alike possess youthful characteristics that influence their ability to validly inform legal processes, some of which were recently recognized by the Supreme Court as they apply to the juvenile death penalty, and (b) that consideration should be given to reforming current practices in the context of juvenile interrogation. ((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

Der Rückschaufehler bei Kindern und Erwachsenen

Zusammenfassung. Der Rückschaufehler (engl. “hindsight bias“) beschreibt die Tendenz, sich bei Schätzaufgaben durch vorgegebene Informationen systematisch beeinflussen zu lassen. Dieses Phänomen ist gut untersucht, allerdings ist seine entwicklungspsychologische Genese noch völlig unklar. Deshalb haben wir 274 Kinder und Erwachsene gebeten, die Antworten auf schwierige numerische Wissensfragen zu schätzen. Zu jeder Frage wurde ein niedriger oder hoher Wert als “Schätzung einer anderen Person“ (einer “Lehrerin“ oder eines “Schülers“) vorgegeben. Die Versuchspersonen wurden instruiert, diese Information bei ihrer Schätzung nicht zu berücksichtigen. Die Ergebnisse zeigten einen deutlichen Rückschaufehler, d. h. auf niedrige Werte erfolgten niedrigere Schätzungen als auf hohe Werte. Dieser Effekt war bei den Kindern stärker ausgeprägt als bei den Erwachsenen. Die Quelle des vorgegebenen Wertes (“Lehrerin“ oder “Schüler“) wirkte sich dabei nicht aus. Die Ergebnisse werden im Rahmen des kognitiven Prozessmodells “SARA“ diskutiert.

Children's Evaluation of Sources of Information About Traits

Children's assessment of the value of different sources of information about psychological traits was investigated among 6- to 7-year-olds and 10- to 11-year-olds across 5 studies (N = 330). Older children were more likely than younger children to reject self-report as a source of information about the highly evaluative traits smart and honest, but no such age-related difference was seen for the less evaluative comparison traits outgoing and nervous. A similar pattern of age-related differences was seen when children were asked to identify which of 4 sources of information--self-report, teacher report, peer report, or direct observation--would be most useful for obtaining information about the evaluative and comparison traits. The age-related increase in skepticism about self-report as a source of information for evaluative traits was associated with an increased appreciation of the role that social desirability plays in self-presentational processes.

Source Recall Enhances Children's Discrimination of Seen and Heard Events

The effects of rehearsing actions by source (slideshow vs. story) and of test modality (picture vs. verbal) on source monitoring were examined. Seven- to 8-year-old children (N = 30) saw a slideshow event and heard a story about a similar event. One to 2 days later, they recalled the events by source (source recall), recalled the events without reference to source (no-source-cue recall), or engaged in no recall. Seven to 8 days later, all children received verbal and picture source-monitoring tests. Children in the source recall group were less likely than children in the other groups to claim they saw actions merely heard in the story. No-source-cue recall impaired source identification of story actions. The picture test enhanced recognition, but not source monitoring, of slide actions. Increasing the distinctiveness of the target events (Experiment 2) allowed the picture test to facilitate slideshow action discrimination by children in the no-recall group.

“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.

Entscheidungsprozesse im Falschinformationsparadigma:

Zusammenfassung. Ein Falschinformationseffekt - klassischerweise im Zusammenhang mit Zeugenaussagen untersucht - tritt auf, wenn nach der Enkodierung von Originalinformation falsche Detailinformationen suggeriert und in die Gedächtnisaussage übernommen werden. Es wird ein Modell vorgestellt, welches die Informationsverarbeitungsprozesse beschreibt, die dem Falschinformationseffekt zugrunde liegen. Dem Modell inhärent sind dabei sowohl gedächtnis- wie sozialpsychologische Annahmen, und es kann eine große Anzahl von Befunden aus beiden Bereichen integriert werden. Besonders bedeutsam innerhalb des Modells sind die Variablen Unsicherheit, metakognitive Schlussfolgerungsprozesse und sozialer Einfluss. Das Modell beschreibt das Zusammenwirken dieser Variablen und erlaubt Vorhersagen darüber, ob und aufgrund welcher Prozesse es zu falschen Erinnerungen kommt.

"If It Happened, I Would Remember It": Strategic Use of Event Memorability in the Rejection of False Autobiographical Events

The present research investigated the link between perceived event memorability and false-event rejection. In 2 studies, event salience, plausibility, and recency were manipulated. Study 1 showed that high-salience events elicited higher memorability ratings than low-salience events for 5-, 7-, 9-year-olds and adults. Plausibility and recency affected only 9-year-olds' and adults' judgments. Study 2 demonstrated that younger versus older children and adults were less likely to reject false events, and that older children and adults were more likely to reject false events based on salience than were younger children. High-recency false events were more likely to be rejected than low-recency false events. Consistent with prediction, recency moderated the effect of salience. The development of metamemorial awareness and rejection strategies is discussed.

A Missing Link in Suggestibility Research: What Is Known About the Behavior of Field Interviewers in Unstructured Interviews With Young Children?

Despite suggestibility researchers' focus on adult behaviors that distort children's reports, whether behaviors examined in experimental work are used in the field is unknown. The current study presents a mutually exclusive and exhaustive hierarchical coding system that reflects interview questioning behaviors of concern in experimental work. The study examined 80 unstructured interviews conducted by 41 field interviewers with 40 children ages 3 to 7 about known events. Data on the use of leading and neutral questions are presented and include distinctions between accurate and inaccurate suggested information. In addition, analyses show that interviewers are consistent in their style of questioning and that a preinterview measure of interviewers' preference for a qualitative versus a quantitative interviewing style predicted the introduction of novel information into the interview.

Comparisons of three different investigative interview techniques with young children

After viewing a film of a mother hitting her son, a film not seen by the college student interviewers, children were misinformed about a detail (via exposure to a misleading question) as well as explicitly coached to disclose 3 false details. The children were then interviewed by interviewers who had previously learned 1 of 3 different interviewing procedures: the Yuille Step-Wise Interview developed by J. C. Yuille, R. Hunter, R. Joffe, & J. Zapamiuk (1993); a doll play interview developed by Action for Child Protection Inc. (1994); or the Modified Structured Interview developed for this study. The Modified Structured Interview yielded more "where" information and was better at detecting if coaching had occurred. However, the interviewers were not very good at discriminating suggested versus coached versus correct witnessed information. The authors found that the deeper one digs for memories, the more one uncovers incorrect versus correct items. They concluded that although the Modified Structured Interview was superior to the techniques currently in use, cautions are necessary.

The power of the spoken word: sociolinguistic cues influence the misinformation effect

We investigated whether the sociolinguistic information delivered by spoken, accented postevent narratives would influence the misinformation effect. New Zealand subjects listened to misleading postevent information spoken in either a New Zealand (NZ) or North American (NA) accent. Consistent with earlier research, we found that NA accents were seen as more powerful and more socially attractive. We found that accents per se had no influence on the misinformation effect but sociolinguistic factors did: both power and social attractiveness affected subjects' susceptibility to misleading postevent suggestions. When subjects rated the speaker highly on power, social attractiveness did not matter; they were equally misled. However, when subjects rated the speaker low on power, social attractiveness did matter: subjects who rated the speaker high on social attractiveness were more misled than subjects who rated it lower. There were similar effects for confidence. These results have implications for our understanding of social influences on the misinformation effect.

Confidence judgments in children's and adults' event recall and suggestibility

The present work investigated the role of children's and adults' metacognitive monitoring and control processes for unbiased event recall tasks and for suggestibility. Three studies were conducted in which children and adults indicated their degree of confidence that their answers were correct after (Study 1) and before (Study 2) answering either unbiased or misleading questions or (Study 3) forced-choice recognition questions. There was a strong tendency for overestimation of confidence regardless of age and question format. However, children did not lack the principal metacognitive competencies when these questions were asked in a neutral interview. Under misleading questioning, in contrast, children's monitoring skills were seriously impaired. Within each age group, better metacognitive differentiation was positively associated with recall accuracy in the suggestive interview.

Explorations in the social contagion of memory

Four experiments examined social influence on the development of false memories. We employed the social contagion paradigm: A subject and a confederate see scenes and then later take turns recalling items from the scenes, with the confederate erroneously reporting some items that were not present in the scenes; on a final test, the subject reports these suggested items when instructed to recall only items from the scenes. The first two experiments showed that the social contagion effect persisted when subjects were explicitly warned about the possibility that confederates' responses might induce false memories and when they were tested via source-monitoring tests that explicitly gave the choice of attributing suggested items to the other person. Levels of false recall and recognition increased with the number of times the misleading information was suggested (Experiment 3), and subjects were more likely to incorporate the erroneous responses of an actual confederate on a recognition/source test as compared with those of a simulated confederate (Experiment 4). Collectively, the data support the claim that false memories may be transmitted between people and reveal critical factors that modulate the social contagion of memories.

Forensic evaluation of trauma syndromes in children

There are significant differences between a clinical evaluation and a forensic evaluation [289-291]. These differences must be kept solidly in mind in performing the evaluation. The forensic evaluator needs to assess the validity of complaints, including the possibility of malingering and the child's ability to describe symptoms accurately, the connection between the symptoms and a given incident, and the potential long-term sequelae of a trauma. The goal of the interview is not to treat, but to obtain information. Assessing the validity of complaints is perhaps the greatest challenge. This requires obtaining and reconciling data from numerous sources, including interviews with the child and parents, and information from other sources, as well as rating scales and validity testing. One must be very cautious in asking leading questions and using standardized PTSD protocols, lest they teach the parents and child about the symptoms of PTSD and thereby distort the information they provide as a result. The forensic interviewer should consider what will be needed when called to testify in court. What data will convince the jury? How might the opposing attorney challenge the assessment? What scientific studies support the findings and conclusions concerning the diagnosis, functional impairment, and validity. The precise DSM-IV-TR diagnosis is not always key in a forensic evaluation. What is essential is establishing the connection between the trauma and ensuing emotional problems. All of the symptoms the individual has as a result of the trauma become important, whether or not they contribute to fulfillment of DSM-IV-TR criteria. This contrasts with a clinical evaluation in which one needs to demonstrate the existence of a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis for reimbursement purposes. Finally, the forensic evaluator should be familiar with current practice guidelines for examination of children with PTSD. Any deviation may need to be explained in court [264,292].

Nearly 4 years after an event: children's eyewitness memory and adults' perceptions of children's accuracy

OBJECTIVE

The current study examined children's eyewitness memory nearly 4 years after an event and the ability of adults to evaluate such memory.

METHOD

In Phase 1, 7- and 10-year olds were interviewed about a past event after a nearly 4-year delay. The interview included leading questions relevant to child abuse as well as statements designed to implicate the original confederate. In Phase 2, laypersons and professionals watched a videotaped interview (from Phase 1) that they were misled to believe was from an ongoing abuse investigation. Respondents then rated the child's accuracy and credibility, and the probability that the child had been abused.

RESULTS

In Phase 1, few significant age differences in memory accuracy were found, perhaps owing in part to small sample size. Although children made a variety of commission errors, none claimed outright to have been abused. Nevertheless, some of the children's answers (e.g., saying that their picture had been taken, or that they had been in a bathtub) might cause concern in a forensic setting. In Phase 2, professional and nonprofessional respondents were unable to reliably estimate the overall accuracy of children's statements. However, respondents were able to reasonably estimate the accuracy of children's answers to abuse questions. Respondents were also more likely to think that 7-year olds compared to 10-year olds had been abused. Professionals were significantly less likely than nonprofessionals to believe that credible evidence of abuse existed. Professionals who indicated personal experience with child abuse or a close relationship with an abuse victim were more likely to rate children as abused. A gender bias to rate boys as more accurate than girls was apparent among laypersons but not professionals.

CONCLUSIONS

Children were generally resistant to suggestions that abuse occurred during a long-ago generally forgotten event, but some potentially concerning errors were made. Both professionals and non-professionals had difficulty estimating the accuracy of children's reports, but adults were more likely to rate children as accurate if the children answered abuse-related questions correctly. Training and personal experience were associated with adults' ratings of children's reports. Implications for evaluations of child abuse reports are discussed.

Does the nature of the experience influence suggestibility? A study of children's event memory

Two experiments examined the effects of event modality on children's memory and suggestibility. In Experiment 1, 3- and 5-year-old children directly participated in, observed, or listened to a narrative about an event. In an interview immediately after the event, free recall was followed by misleading or leading questions and, in turn, test recall questions. One week later children were reinterviewed. In Experiment 2, 4-year-old children either participated in or listened to a story about an event, either a single time or to a criterion level of learning. Misleading questions were presented either immediately or 1 week after learning, followed by test recall questions. Five-year-old children were more accurate than 3-year-olds and those participating were more accurate than those either observing or listening to a narrative. However, method of assessment, level of event learning, delay to testing, and variables relating to the misled items also influenced the magnitude of misinformation effects.

Differences and Similarities in Event Recall and Suggestibility Between Children and Adults in Germany and the United States

Abstract. Children (5-6 year olds, 7-8 year olds, 9-10 year olds) and adults from Germany and the United States were shown a brief video of a theft. One week later, participants were asked to give a free narrative of an observed event (free recall), followed either by sets of misleading or unbiased questions, and finally they were given a three-choice recognition question for each queried item. German participants of all ages had higher levels of correct free recall than did American participants. American adults and 9-10 year olds gave more correct responses to the open-ended unbiased questions than did their German counterparts. Germans of all ages made more correct responses to the misleading questions, whereas national differences, favoring the Germans, for incorrect response to misleading questions were restricted to the 5-6 year olds. National differences were interpreted as reflecting possible differences in strategic abilities, exposure to formal instruction, and the degree to which children experience self-directed, autonomous learning opportunities.

Naturally Occurring and Suggestion- Dependent Memory Distortions: The Convergence of Disparate Research Traditions

Two lines of research that have revealed the existence of memory distortions are reviewed. Both began at the beginning of this century and continue through today. One is a coherent research tradition aimed at investigating suggestion-dependent memory distortions produced by clinical and social psychological manipulations; the other consists of a series of unrelated studies on naturally occurring memory distortions. These latter studies are aimed at establishing some of the basic processes underlying the functioning of normal human memory and have not previously been considered together as part of the literature on memory errors.

Fuzzy-trace theory: dual processes in memory, reasoning, and cognitive neuroscience

Fuzzy-trace theory has evolved in response to counterintuitive data on how memory development influences the development of reasoning. The two traditional perspectives on memory-reasoning relations--the necessity and constructivist hypotheses--stipulate that the accuracy of children's memory for problem information and the accuracy of their reasoning are closely intertwined, albeit for different reasons. However, contrary to necessity, correlational and experimental dissociations have been found between children's memory for problem information that is determinative in solving certain problems and their solutions of those problems. In these same tasks, age changes in memory for problem information appear to be dissociated from age changes in reasoning. Contrary to constructivism, correlational and experimental dissociations also have been found between children's performance on memory tests for actual experience and memory tests for the meaning of experience. As in memory-reasoning studies, age changes in one type of memory performance do not seem to be closely connected to age changes in the other type of performance. Subsequent experiments have led to dual-process accounts in both the memory and reasoning spheres. The account of memory development features four other principles: parallel verbatim-gist storage, dissociated verbatim-gist retrieval, memorial bases of conscious recollection, and identity/similarity processes. The account of the development of reasoning features three principles: gist extraction, fuzzy-to-verbatim continua, and fuzzy-processing preferences. The fuzzy-processing preference is a particularly important notion because it implies that gist-based intuitive reasoning often suffices to deliver "logical" solutions and that such reasoning confers multiple cognitive advantages that enhance accuracy. The explanation of memory-reasoning dissociations in cognitive development then falls out of fuzzy-trace theory's dual-process models of memory and reasoning. More explicitly, in childhood reasoning tasks, it is assumed that both verbatim and gist traces of problem information are stored. Responding accurately to memory tests for presented problem information depends primarily on verbatim memory abilities (preserving traces of that information and accessing them when the appropriate memory probes are administered). However, accurate solutions to reasoning problems depend primarily on gist-memory abilities (extracting the correct gist from problem information, focusing on that gist during reasoning, and accessing reasoning operations that process that gist). Because verbatim and gist memories exhibit considerable dissociation, both during storage and when they are subsequently accessed on memory tests, dissociations of verbatim-based memory performance from gist-based reasoning are predictable. Conversely, associations are predicted in situations in which memory and reasoning are based on the same verbatim traces (Brainerd & Reyna, 1988) and in situations in which memory and reasoning are based on the same gist traces (Reyna & Kiernan, 1994). Fuzzy-trace theory's memory and reasoning principles have been applied in other research domains. Four such domains are developmental cognitive neuroscience studies of false memory, studies of false memory in brain-damaged patients, studies of reasoning errors in judgment and decision making, and studies of retrieval mechanisms in recall. In the first domain, the principles of parallel verbatim-gist storage, dissociated verbatim-gist retrieval, and identity/similarity processes have been used to explain both spontaneous and implanted false reports in children and in the elderly. These explanations have produced some surprising predictions that have been verified: false reports do not merely decline with age during childhood but increase under theoretically specified conditions; reports of events that were not experienced can nevertheless be highly persistent over time; and false reports can be suppressed by retrieving verbatim traces of corresponding true events. In the second domain, the same principles have been invoked to explain why some forms of brain damage lead to elevated levels of false memory and other forms lead to reduced levels of false memory. In the third domain, the principles of gist extraction, fuzzy-to-verbatim continua, and fuzzy-processing preferences have been exploited to formulate a general theory of loci of processing failures in judgment and decision making, cluminating in a developmental account of degrees of rationality that distinguishes more and less advanced reasoning. This theory has in turn been used to formulate local models, such as the inclusion illusions model, that explain the characteristic reasoning errors that are observed on specific judgment and decision-making tasks. Finally, in the fourth domain, a dual-process conception of recall has been derived from the principles of parallel verbatim-gist storage and dissociated verbatim-gist retrieval. In this conception, which has been used to explain cognitive triage effects in recall and robust false recall, targets are recalled either by directly accessing their verbatim traces and reading the retrieved information out of consciousness or by reconstructively processing their gist traces.

Children's susceptibility to retroactive interference: the effects of age and degree of learning

The effects of age and degree of learning on children's susceptibility to retroactive interference were examined. Children (4- and 7-year-olds) participated in a target game either once or three times. Each time, they learned the target stimuli to criterion. Two days later, the children either rested or participated in a second game containing inconsistent information. Retrieval tests were administered 3 weeks later. Children who participated in the target game repeatedly recognized more information from that game, both accurately and as intrusions, than did children who participated only once. Both age groups were susceptible to retroactive interference; degree of susceptibility was affected by neither age nor degree of learning. Nevertheless, the 7-year-olds were more accurate at test. These findings suggest that differences in the forgetting rate between 4- and 7-year-olds are not caused by differential susceptibility to retroactive interference.

A case study of child sexual false allegation

PURPOSE

The objectives of the case study reported in this article were twofold. The first objective was to follow the path by which a naive suggestion made in the course of a mother-child conversation was transformed into an allegation of severe sexual abuse. The second objective was to analyze the child's interview scientifically and explore the limitations of scientific tools for detecting implausible allegations.

METHODS

Independent case facts were collected and analyzed to determine whether the event described by the child was likely to have happened. The credibility of the child's account was assessed using Criterion-Based Content Analysis and the information provided in both the "implausible" and "corrected" statements was compared to quantify the fabricated details in the implausible statement.

RESULTS

The event described by the child was "very unlikely to have happened" but the credibility assessment failed to detect its implausibility. Comparison of the two statements revealed that the child did fabricate central details but incorporated them into a description of an event she really experienced, and most of the information provided was truthful.

CONCLUSIONS

The pressure to conform to suggestions can be irresistible, inducing some children to make false allegations of severe sexual abuse. Scientific tools designed for credibility assessment are limited and may fail to detect implausible statements especially when they incorporate information about genuinely experienced events.

Source monitoring and false memories in children: relation to certainty and executive functioning

We presented children aged 6, 8, and 10 years with a video and then an audio tape about a dog named Mick. Some information was repeated in the two sources and some was unique to one source. We examined: (a) children's hit rate for remembering whether events occurred and their tendency to make false alarms, (b) their memory for the context in which events occurred (source monitoring), (c) their certainty about hits, false alarms, and source, and (d) whether working memory and inhibition were related to hits, false alarms, and source monitoring. The certainty ratings revealed deficits in children's understanding of when they had erred on source questions and of when they had made false alarms. In addition, inhibitory ability accounted for unique variance in the ability to avoid false alarms and in some kinds of source monitoring but not hits. In contrast, working memory tended to correlate with all forms of memory including hits.

The credibility of children's testimony: can children control the accuracy of their memory reports?

In previous work with adults (A. Koriat & M. Goldsmith, 1994, 1996c), it was shown that people can enhance the accuracy of their testimony substantially when they (a) are effective in monitoring the correctness of their answers, (b) are free to control their reporting accordingly (i.e., to decide which pieces of information to volunteer and which to withhold), and (c) are given incentives for accurate reporting. A theoretical model was developed, which specifies the critical role of metacognitive monitoring and control processes in mediating free-report memory accuracy. The present study applies that model to examine the strategic regulation of memory accuracy by children. Three experiments indicate that both younger (ages 7 to 9) and older (ages 10 to 12) children can enhance the accuracy of their testimony by screening out wrong answers under free-report conditions but suggest a developmental trend in the level of memory accuracy that is thereby achieved. The implications of the results for the dependability of children's testimony in legal settings are discussed.

Age-related changes in the misinformation effect

In these experiments, we examined the relation between age-related changes in retention and age-related changes in the misinformation effect. Children (5- and 6- and 11- and 12-year-olds) and adults viewed a video, and their memory was assessed immediately, 1 day, or 6 weeks later (Experiment 1). There were large age-related differences in retention when participants were interviewed immediately and after 1 day, but after the 6-week delay, age-related differences in retention were minimal. In Experiment 2, 11- and 12-year-olds and adults were exposed to neutral, leading, and misleading postevent information 1 day or 6 weeks after they viewed the video. Exposure to misleading information increased the number of commission errors, particularly when participants were asked about peripheral aspects of the video. At both retention intervals, children were more likely than adults to incorporate the misleading postevent information into their subsequent verbal accounts. These findings indicate that age-related changes in the misinformation effect are not predicted by age-related changes in retention.

Toward a psychology of memory accuracy

There has been unprecedented interest in recent years in questions pertaining to accuracy and distortion in memory. This interest, catalyzed in part by real-life problems, marks a significant departure from the quantity-oriented approach that has characterized much of traditional memory research. We outline a correspondence metaphor of memory underlying accuracy-oriented research, and show how the features of this metaphor are manifested across the disparate bodies of research reviewed here. These include work in the Gestalt tradition, spatial memory, memory for gist, schema theory, source monitoring, fluency misattributions, false recall and recognition, postevent misinformation, false memories, eyewitness research, and autobiographical memory. In examining the dynamics of memory accuracy, we highlight the importance of metacognitive monitoring and control processes. We end by discussing some of the methodological, theoretical, and metatheoretical issues inherent in accuracy-oriented research, attempting to prepare the groundwork for a more coherent psychology of memory accuracy.

Transition from novelty to familiarity preference depending on recognition performance by 4-yr.-olds

Preference seems to depend exclusively on individual tastes; however, preferential behavior may be determined by memory, as past studies have shown that preferences for objects depended on whether objects had been previously experienced. Infants and young children prefer novel stimuli, while adults prefer familiar stimuli. To investigate the relationship between memory and preference directly, a preference task and a recognition task were administered to the same subjects. The subjects were 4-yr.-olds because Uehara observed a change in preference for novelty and familiarity in 4-yr.-olds, depending on their recognition performance. The results were similar to those of Uehara. The children who had lower scores in the recognition task preferred the novel stimuli in the preference task, and the children who had higher scores preferred the familiar. Developmental changes within children, from low scores on recognition coupled with novelty preference to high scores on recognition coupled with familiarity preference, were observed.

The effect of a nonverbal aid on preschoolers' recall for color

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether the provision of a nonverbal memory aid would improve preschoolers' recall of color. Forty 4-year-old children carried out 2 tasks with the same set of colored objects. Colors were not referred to, nor were children told that their recall would later be tested. One day later, the children were split into 2 groups. One group was given a chart containing both the colors of the objects and distractor colors. The other group was not given a chart. Recall for object color was tested. There was an effect of chart provision; children who used the chart recalled more colors correctly than did those who did not use a chart. This result indicates (a) that even very young children can make use of props to facilitate their recall and (b) that such memory aids need not be exact copies of previously seen objects. Implications of these findings for eyewitness recall are discussed.

Differences in episodic memory between four- and five-year-olds: false information versus real experiences

It is assumed that personal episodes from any age less than about four years can rarely be recalled (infantile amnesia) because episodic memory is not well developed until this age. To investigate this, experiments were conducted with 30 4- and 30 5-yr.-olds. Experiments first examined whether the children could report parent-child games in a sports festival two days after the festival. The results indicated that 4-yr.-olds could not report the episodic contents of the games properly even though they reported the results of the ball matches as well as the 5-yr.-olds. Seven days after that report, the subject was told twice by the experimenter about realistic or unrealistic events as if these were their own experiences. The subject was again required to report the events seven days after receiving information. The results showed that 4-yr.-olds tended to mistake the information provided by the experimenter for their own real experiences. These results indicate that there may be a critical difference of episodic memory between 4- and 5-yr.-olds. Episodic memory was not well developed yet in 4-yr.-olds.