THE EFFECT OF QUESTIONING ON YOUNG CHILDRENS MEMORY FOR AN EVENT

The effect of adult questioning on young children's memory for an even t was examined. Three groups of 4- and 5-year-old children experienced two special events. The questioning group was then asked a set of que stions about one of the events on four different occasions over a 7-we ek period. At the end of the 7 weeks, all children were tested for rec all of the two events. The experience of answering questions enhanced the memory performance of the children in the questioning group. Howev er, comparison of the performance of the questioning group with that o f two control groups showed that their memory improvement was extremel y specific: (a) The questioning group did better only on the specific questions they had been repeatedly asked, (b) There was no general enh ancement of recall; they were no better on new questions about the sam e event, (c). The enhancement was not specific to the experience of re trieving information from long-term memory; the performance of a contr ol group with no long-term memory demands was almost identical to that of the questioning group. The results of this study support the view that adult questioning of young children enhances memory for the speci fic information about which questions have been asked, but it does not have generalized effects on memory performance or development.