Children's memory and source monitoring of real-life and televised events

Citation
Kp. Roberts et M. Blades, Children's memory and source monitoring of real-life and televised events, J APPL D P, 20(4), 1999, pp. 575-596
Citations number
44
Categorie Soggetti
Psycology
Journal title
JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
ISSN journal
01933973 → ACNP
Volume
20
Issue
4
Year of publication
1999
Pages
575 - 596
Database
ISI
SICI code
0193-3973(199910/12)20:4<575:CMASMO>2.0.ZU;2-X
Abstract
It is theoretically and practically important to know whether children conf use memories of different events to which they have been exposed. In two st udies, children aged 4 and 10 years watched two related events; one event w as live and the other was a video recording. Half of the children watched a video that was similar to the live event, and the remaining children watch ed a video that was dissimilar. One week later, children in the similar con dition confused the two events more than those in the different condition w hen freely recalling (Experiments 1 and 2) and in response to focused quest ions (Experiment 1). The 10-year olds reported more information than the 4- year olds and were more accurate overall, confusing the events less than th e 4-year olds. When the events were presented 1 day after each other (Exper iment 2), the reports were more inaccurate than when the events were separa ted by a 2-day interval, but this did not affect the number of rimes the ev ents were confused. The results suggest that mere exposure to similar event s in different media can contaminate memories, and the findings are discuss ed in relation to children's sourer monitoring and eyewitness memory.