Children's eyewitness reports after exposure to misinformation from parents

This study examined how misleading suggestions from parents influenced chil dren's eyewitness reports. Children (3 to 8 years old) participated in scie nce demonstrations, listened to their parents read a story that described e xperienced and nonexperienced events, and subsequently discussed the scienc e experience in two follow-up interviews. Many children described fictitiou s events in response to open-ended prompts, and there were no age differenc es in suggestibility during this phase of the interview, Accuracy declined markedly in response to direct questions, especially for the younger childr en. Although the older children retracted many of their false reports after receiving source-monitoring instructions, the younger children did not. Pa th analyses indicated that acquiescence, free recall, and source monitoring all contribute to mediating patterns of suggestibility across age, Results indicate that judgments about the accuracy of children's testimony must co nsider the possibility of exposure to misinformation prior to formal interv iews.