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Child witnesses’ metamemory realism
Author(s) -
ALLWOOD CARL MARTIN,
GRANHAG PÄR ANDERS,
JONSSON ANNACARIN
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2006.00530.x
Subject(s) - overconfidence effect , metamemory , psychology , context (archaeology) , scale (ratio) , developmental psychology , realism , social psychology , cognition , metacognition , paleontology , art , physics , literature , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , biology
This study investigated the degree of realism in the confidence judgments of 11 to 12‐year‐olds (41 girls and 40 boys) of their answers to questions relating to a short film clip showing a kidnapping event. Four different confidence scales were used: a numeric scale, a picture scale, a line scale and a written scale. The results demonstrated that the children showed a high level of overconfidence in their memories. However, no significant differences between the four confidence scales were found. Weak gender differences were found in that the girls were slightly, but significantly, better calibrated than the boys. In addition, although both boys and girls overestimated the total number of memory questions they had answered correctly, the boys gave higher estimates compared with the girls. In brief, the results indicate that, at least in the context investigated, 11–12 year‐old children's confidence in and estimations of their own event memory show poor realism (overconfidence and overestimation). A comparison with previous research on adults indicates that 11 to 12‐year‐old children show noticeably poorer realism.