Memory, Suggestibility, and Eyewitness Testimony in Children and Adults (From Children's Eyewitness Memory, P 53-78, 1987, Stephen J Ceci, et al, eds. - See NCJ-104752)

• NCJ Number: 104756
• Author(s): M S Zarogoza
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 26 pages
• Sale Source: Springer-Verlag
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The current understanding of the effects of misleading suggestions on adult testimony rests on conceptual and methodological tools that can be usefully applied to the study of suggestibility in children.

Abstract

Adults may report misleading suggestions on later tests of memory for three types of reasons. The misleading information may have altered the original memory; the subject may feel social pressures to report the misleading information rather than the accurate information; and the subject may never have absorbed the original, accurate information. A modification of the traditional test procedure used in experiments in this area can determine whether misinformation effects result from memory impairment only or whether the other factors are involved. The traditional test gives subjects a choice between the originally-seen item and the misleading item, whereas the modified test gives a choice between the originally seem item and a new item. Studies using the modified test procedure for children have shown that young children are not more suggestible than adults in all circumstances. However, understanding of memory and the effects of misinformation is incomplete. The knowledge related to adults can generate specific questions about children, leading to better understanding of developmental differences in the factors that produce suggestibility effects. Tables, illustrations, and 50 references.