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A real‐life event enhances the accuracy of preschoolers' recall
Author(s) -
Thierry Karen L.,
Spence Melanie J.
Publication year - 2004
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.965
Subject(s) - psychology , recall , misinformation , event (particle physics) , developmental psychology , cognition , memoria , cognitive psychology , computer science , psychiatry , physics , computer security , quantum mechanics
Abstract Children's memory and susceptibility to misinformation about a real‐life and video event were examined. Eighty‐six three‐ to four‐year‐olds and five‐ to six‐year‐olds observed an event either in real life or on video. Immediately afterward, they freely recalled the event and answered misleading questions about central and descriptive information. Three‐ to four‐year‐olds in the video condition were less likely to accurately recall descriptive information than three‐ to four‐year‐olds in the live condition and five‐ to six‐year‐olds in either condition. Children in the video condition were less accurate in response to misleading questions than those in the live condition. When video condition three‐ to four‐year‐olds in Experiment 2 were asked nonmisleading questions that prompted them for descriptive information, they recalled descriptors less accurately than those in the live condition. These results have particularly important implications for studies that utilize video events when investigating children's eyewitness memory. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.