The production of spontaneous false memories across childhood

Henry Otgaar; Mark L Howe; Maarten Peters; Tom Smeets; Steffen Moritz

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2013.11.019

The production of spontaneous false memories across childhood

J Exp Child Psychol. 2014 May:121:28-41. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.11.019. Epub 2014 Jan 20.

Authors

Henry Otgaar¹, Mark L Howe², Maarten Peters³, Tom Smeets³, Steffen Moritz⁴

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: henry.otgaar@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
² Department of Psychology, City University London, London EC1V 0HB, UK.
³ Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany.

PMID: 24448519
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.11.019

Abstract

We found evidence that the usual developmental trends in children's spontaneous false memories were eliminated using novel stimuli containing obvious themes. That is, children created more false memories than adults when scenes needed to be remembered. In Experiment 1, 7- and 8-year-olds had higher false memory rates than adults when using visual scenes. Experiment 2 showed that gist cuing could not account for this effect. In Experiment 3, children and adults received visual scenes and story contexts in which these scenes were embedded. For both types of stimuli, we found that children had the highest false memory rates. Our results indicate that the underlying theme of these scenes is easily identified, resulting in our developmental false memory trend.

Keywords: DRM; Development; False memory; Memory; Spreading activation; Suggestion.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Child
Cues
Female
Humans
Male
Memory*
Photic Stimulation
Psychology, Child
Recognition, Psychology
Young Adult