MEMORY FOR CHILDHOOD EVENTS - HOW SUGGESTIBLE IS IT

The veracity of children's memory is frequently doubted because it is assumed that first, children's memory is generally not very good, and second, children and their memories are too vulnerable to suggestibili ty to be credible. In this article these two assumptions are evaluated and three experiments are presented that address constraints on the c onstruct of suggestibility. In the first experiment, it is reported th at memory for a more frequently occurring event is more resistant to s uggestibility than is memory for an event experienced only once. This finding is especially relevant to memory for child abuse as it is comm on for perpetrators to frequently abuse the same child. In two additio nal experiments it is reported that it is relatively difficult to sugg est to a child that something occurred when it did not. These results suggest that although memories for childhood events may be imperfect, they are not likely to be confabulated. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.