Memory errors in elementary school children

Abstract

Using the DRM paradigm and a short story format, elementary age children demonstrate immediate false recall and recognition effects. Results from using the DRM lists showed that, relative to adult false recall levels, older children falsely recalled fewer critical words from DRM lists, and younger children's false recall of critical words was near floor levels, suggesting that gist processing did not predominate during the free recall task. Developmental trends were not in the direction of increased accuracy in memory performance, but rather in the direction of increased false memory. Contradiction within a short story format increased levels of false memory in younger and older children to levels that were not reliably different from information that repeated sentence meaning. Results from both experiments demonstrate that increases in false memory occurred when gist memory representations were strengthened, i.e., when the meaning of words or sentences was repeated. False memory effects were more pronounced over a delay interval. Fuzzy trace theory's assumptions explain the preponderance of the memory testing results obtained in these two experiments. Results run counter to suggestibility studies, where younger children produce false memory that surpasses older children and adults.