The ways in which event memories may be reconstructed or transformed t
hrough discussion with others is a critical question both for understa
nding basic memory processes and for issues concerning legal testimony
. In this research, white middle-class preschool children were intervi
ewed first by their mothers and then by a female experimenter about pe
rsonally experienced events when they were 40, 46, 58, and 70 months o
f age. Analyses indicated that at all four time points children only i
ncorporated about 9% of the information initially recounted by the mot
her into their independent recall of the event with the experimenter.
Moreover, children only repeated about 20% of the information they the
mselves recalled across the two interviews. Additional analyses indica
ted that information mutually discussed by the mother and child was no
more likely to be incorporated or repeated when recalling the event w
ith the experimenter than information not mutually discussed. These re
sults indicate that young children's personal memories are not so frag
ile that they easily incorporate information provided by another into
their own recall. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.