Developmental Trends in False Memory Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood: A Comparison of DRM and Memory Conformity Paradigms

Age differences in false memories for visual scenes and the effect of prior recall

This study investigated age differences in false memory for visual scenes and the effect of immediate recall on subsequent recognition. Eighty children (7–9 years), 74 adolescents (14–16 years), 92 young adults (19–26 years) and 82 older adults (50–80 years) studied four visual scenes and then took a recognition test after either a free-recall task or a filler task. Results showed an age-related decline in false recognition for visual scenes, but this trend was eliminated when participants were asked to free-recall before recognition. Prior recall decreased false recognition in children, but increased false recognition in older adults. Across the lifespan, adolescents had the loosest criterion, children had the lowest false recall, and prior recall increased true recognition in older adults.

Developmental trends in lineup performance: Adolescents are more prone to innocent bystander misidentifications than children and adults

We tested developmental trends in eyewitness identification in biased and unbiased lineups. Our main interest was adolescent's lineup performance compared with children and adults. 7-10-year-olds, 11-13-year-olds, 14-16-year-olds, and adults (N = 431) watched a wallet-theft-video and subsequently identified the thief, victim, and witness from simultaneous target-present and target-absent six-person photo lineups. The thief-absent lineup included a bystander previously seen in thief proximity. Research on unconscious transference suggested a selection bias toward the bystander in adults and 11-13-year-olds, but not in younger children. Confirming our hypothesis, adolescents were more prone to bystander bias than all other age groups. This may be due to adolescents making more inferential errors than children, as predicted by fuzzy-trace theory and associative-activation theory, combined with lower inhibition control in adolescents compared with adults. We also replicated a clothing bias for all age groups and age-related performance differences in our unbiased lineups. Consistent with previous findings, participants were generally overconfident in their decisions, even though confidence was a better predictor of accuracy in older compared with younger participants. With this study, we show that adolescents have an increased tendency to misidentify an innocent bystander. Continued efforts are needed to disentangle how adolescents in comparison to other age groups perform in forensically relevant situations.

The Impact of Testing on the Formation of Children's and Adults' False Memories

Witnesses are frequently questioned immediately following a crime. The effects of such testing on false recall are inconclusive: Testing may inoculate against subsequent misinformation or enhance false memory formation. We examined whether different types of processing can account for these discrepancies. Drawing from Fuzzy-trace and Associative-activation theories, immediate questions that trigger the processing of the global understanding of the event can heighten false memory rates. However, questions that trigger the processing of specific details can inoculate memories against subsequent misinformation. These effects were hypothesized to be more pronounced in children than in adults. Seven/eight-, 11/12-, 14/15-year-olds, and adults (N = 220) saw a mock-theft film and were tested immediately with meaning or item-specific questions. Test results on the succeeding day replicated classic misinformation and testing effects, although our processing hypothesis was not supported. Only adults who received meaning questions benefited from immediate testing and, across all ages, testing led to retrieval-enhanced suggestibility. © 2016 The Authors. Applied Cognitive Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sleep and anxiety in late childhood and early adolescence

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Adolescence is a period of dynamic change in both sleep and emotional systems, with related increases in problems controlling emotion and behavior. Youth with anxiety enter adolescence with pre-existing vulnerabilities in systems of sleep and emotion that may place them at heightened risk. This review summarizes recent research on sleep and anxiety during the transition to adolescence, and highlights emerging themes.

RECENT FINDINGS

Prospective studies support that sleep predicts anxiety symptoms in early adolescence. Notably, robust evidence for subjective sleep problems in anxious youth is not well corroborated by objective assessments. Longitudinal designs and methodology that carefully examine dimensions of anxiety and sleep may clarify inconsistencies. Preliminary evidence suggests that late childhood to early adolescence may be a sensitive period for escalating problems with sleep and anxiety. Recent advances in the neuroscience of sleep can further refine integrative mechanistic models of developmental psychopathology - the role of sleep in emotional learning and memory is provided as an example.

SUMMARY

Sleep problems are common and prospectively predict escalating anxiety symptoms. Precision is needed regarding the nature of sleep disruption, and how and when sleep affects various aspects of developmental trajectories. This precision, along with advances in the neuroscience of sleep, may lead to developmentally informed translational interventions.