The effect of suggestion on children's recognition memory for seen and unseen details

Abstract

The present study examined the effect of three different types of suggestion on children's recognition memory. Younger (7-year-olds; n=38) and older (11-year-olds; n=47) children listened to a class presentation about China. Three days later, they were interviewed using suggestive questions that were divided into three categories: questions suggesting that details were present when in fact they were not (commission errors), questions suggesting that presented details were absent (omission errors), and questions suggesting that details were presented differently (change errors). The following day, children participated in a recognition-memory task that contained items that referred to information suggested during the suggestive interview. Children in both age groups were more likely to erroneously endorse items involving change errors than they were to endorse items involving commission or omission errors.

Keywords:

• children
• suggestibility
• memory

Acknowledgement

This study was supported by a grant to the first author from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), grant number 451-03-013.

Notes

1. One drop-out for the memory tests due to illness.

2. Although recognition items were not suggestive in nature, high scores on these items showed that children had incorporated suggested information provided in an earlier phase of the experiment. Therefore, we prefer the term ‘yield score’ here.