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Do better stories make better memories? Narrative quality and memory accuracy in preschool children
Author(s) -
Kulkofsky Sarah,
Wang Qi,
Ceci Stephen J.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1326
Subject(s) - narrative , cohesion (chemistry) , psychology , recall , autobiographical memory , developmental psychology , quality (philosophy) , cognitive psychology , social psychology , linguistics , epistemology , philosophy , chemistry , organic chemistry
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.