Speaker 4: David F. Bjorklund
Saturday December 18, 14:15 - 15:15
Age Differences in Children’s Eyewitness Memory and Suggestibility
David F. Bjorklund
(Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, United States)
Rhonda Douglas Brown
(University of Cincinnati, United States)
Barbara R. Bjorklund
(Florida Atlantic University, United States)
Research into children’s memory for events has increased rapidly over the past 15 years. Although much of this increase was prompted by a change in theoretical perspective (from studying intentional, strategic, and explicit memory to studying unintentional, nonstrategic and implicit memory), some was prompted by children’s increasing presence in courtrooms as witnesses. How reliable were children as eyewitnesses, and how susceptible were children of different ages to suggestion? In this presentation, we will present research from our lab and others that examines these issues. We will focus on the quantity and quality of children’s eyewitness memories as a function of how memory is assessed (free recall, unbiased-leading questions, misleading questions, recognition), how frequently memory is assessed (multiple questioning both within and between interviews), and factors that influence the accuracy of children’s recollections (personality characteristics, background knowledge, familiarity of the interviewer, demand characteristics of the interview). We will examine factors that cause children of different ages to change their answers and differentiate them from factors that cause them to change their memory representations. We conclude that preschool-age children report little information to free recall questions, but what they do remember is accurate and psychologically (and legally) central to the witnessed event. Young children are more likely than older children to follow the leading questions of an interviewer, but will often revert to their original (and correct) recollections of an event when later questioned. Repeated misleading questioning can cause children to change their minds as well as their answers. This is especially true when the event is authenticated by a powerful adult and when an alleged event was said to have happened to them as opposed to someone else.