Children's eyewitness memory for a repeated event

OBJECTIVE: This study examined a significant issue for chronic sexual abuse investigations: Children's eyewitness testimony about repeated events. The few previous studies focused on preschoolers and none used the present methodology of presenting repeated events differing slightly in their details, as would happen in chronic abuse. METHOD: One group of 6- to 7-year-olds played individually with an experimenter on one occasion; the other group experienced three such events, with some details remaining the same and others changing. In a phased interview, children were questioned about the initial event. RESULTS: For details which stayed the same, the children who experienced three events had more accurate memories. They had poorer memories than the single-event group for details which were changed in the later events; however, this was due to interference errors, with errors of omission and commission being lower than in the single-event group. Children conveyed clearly that inappropriate touching did not occur. CONCLUSIONS: Children who experience repeated events have increased recall for repeated details but confuse the timing of details which change across events. The findings support previous suggestions that (a) it is unrealistic to expect children to be able to report repeated events without some confusion about timing of details and (b) children are resistant to misleading questions about abuse.     

Children's Memory of an Occurrence of a Repeated Event: Effects of Age, Repetition, and Retention Interval across Three Question Types

Children's memory of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined whereby each occurrence had the same underlying structure but included unpredictable variations in the specific instantiations of items across the series. The event was administered by the children's teachers at the kindergarten or school. The effects of repetition (single vs. repeated event), age (4–5 vs. 6–8-year-olds), retention interval (1 week vs. 6 weeks), and the frequency of specific instantiations of items were examined across 3 question types. Repetition increased the number of items recalled on a level that was common to all occurrences in response to general probes and reduced the likelihood that children would report details that did not occur in the event. However, repetition also reduced the number of correct responses about which instantiation was included in the occurrence and decreased the consistency of responses across repeated questioning. Most errors were intrusions of details from other occurrences; usually references to instantiations of items that had occurred frequently throughout the series. The younger children showed a poorer ability to discriminate between the occurrences than the older children, but age differences were less evident at the longer retention interval. The results are discussed in relation to current theories of memory and children's eyewitness testimony.     

The roles of prior experience and the timing of misinformation presentation on young children's event memories

The current study addressed how the timing of interviews affected children's memories of unique and repeated events. Five- to six-year-olds (N=125) participated in activities 1 or 4 times and were misinformed either 3 or 21 days after the only or last event. Although single-experience children were subsequently less accurate in the 21- versus 3-day condition, the timing of the misinformation session did not affect memories of repeated-experience children regarding invariant details. Children were more suggestible in the 21- versus 3-day condition for variable details when the test occurred soon after misinformation presentation. Thus, timing differentially affected memories of single and repeated events and depended on the combination of event-misinformation and misinformation-test delays rather than the overall retention interval.     

Can Maltreated Children Inhibit True and False Memories for Emotional Information?

The authors examined 284 maltreated and nonmaltreated children's (6- to 12-year-olds) ability to inhibit true and false memories for neutral and emotional information using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Children studied either emotional or neutral DRM lists in a control condition or were given directed-remembering or directed-forgetting instructions. The findings indicated that children, regardless of age and maltreatment status, could inhibit the output of true and false emotional information, although they did so less effectively than when they were inhibiting the output of neutral material. Verbal IQ was related to memory, but dissociative symptoms were not related to children's recollective ability. These findings add to the growing literature that shows more similarities among, than differences between, maltreated and nonmaltreated children's basic memory processes.     

Intrapersonal Emotion Regulation Processes Influence What Children Remember About Their Emotional Experiences

Little work has tested how emotion regulation (ER) processes influence children's memory for negative experiences. We investigated how two intrapersonal ER processes (affect-biased attention and changes in negative feelings) predicted children's (N = 184, 93 girls, ages 3–11) memory. Recall of a sad or scary film was tested after a delay. The way discrete emotional information was remembered varied with ER and children's age. Older children with greater affect-biased attention or less reduction of fear demonstrated privileged memory for central information from the scary film. Older children with greater affect-biased attention but greater reductions in sadness recalled more from the sad film overall. Findings suggest ER processes should be considered when examining children's memory for negative emotional information.     

Children's Memory for Traumatic Injury

Children between 2 and 13 years who suffered traumatic injury necessitating hospital emergency room treatment were recruited as subjects. They (and adult witnesses) were interviewed a few days and 6 months later, using free and probed recall, about both injury and hospital treatment. Children at all ages were able to provide considerable information about both stressful events, although the amount of detail increased with age. They also made few commission errors. Surprisingly, children's distress at time of injury did not affect the amount or accuracy of their recall of that event, whereas distress during hospital treatment did decrease recall. A tripartite classification into 3 categories of detail was used: central, peripheral-inside the emotional events, or peripheral-outside those events. Children's recall differed depending upon detail category. Implications for children's testimony are discussed.     

"When I Was Little": Childhood Recollections in Chinese and European Canadian Grade School Children

Recollection of early childhood experiences was investigated in 225 European Canadian and 133 Chinese children (ages 8, 11, and 14) by a memory fluency task that measured accessibility of multiple early memories and elicited the earliest memory. Younger children provided memories of events that occurred at earlier ages than older children. Furthermore, Canadian children produced more memories and had an earlier age of first memory than did Chinese children, with cultural differences in both measures increasing with age. It appears that while adultlike childhood amnesia is still emerging among Canadian children, Chinese children by age 14 already resemble adults. Content of Canadian versus Chinese children's memories reflected an autonomous versus relational self-construal. Results are discussed in terms of sociocultural influences on memory.     

What ensues from emotional distress? Implications for competence estimation

Although much is known about what precedes emotional distress, less is known about what follows such distress. The goal of this research was to examine the process by which emotional distress contributes to competence estimation. Children 9 to 13 years of age in fourth through sixth grade (N = 932) participated in a 3-wave longitudinal study spanning 12 months. Their emotional distress, views of themselves and their world, and competence estimation were assessed. Emotional distress predicted negative beliefs about the self and the world over time; these beliefs in turn predicted decrements in competence estimation over time. Negative views of the self and the world mediated the path from emotional distress to competence underestimation. The findings suggest that the experience of emotional distress has negative implications for children's development.     

Children’s classroom engagement and disaffection in Vietnamese kindergartens

In this study, we investigated children’s classroom engagement and disaffection and their relationships with class size, child gender, child age and school type in Vietnamese kindergartens. Children’s classroom engagement and disaffection were examined among 1315 kindergarteners (mean age?=?5.49; SD?=?0.87) and 33 teachers from 31 classrooms in 8 kindergartens. The results of confirmatory factor analyses indicated that children’s classroom engagement and disaffection included four dimensions: behavioural engagement, emotional engagement, behavioural disaffection and emotional disaffection. The results also showed that both behavioural and emotional dimensions of classroom engagement were higher than those of disaffection. Girls had higher emotional and behavioural classroom engagement and lower emotional disaffection than boys. Class size had a negative relationship with both dimensions of children’s disaffection. The findings also indicated that children in the older age group showed greater emotional disaffection and lower emotional engagement compared to children in the younger age group.     

Young Children's Understanding of the Causes of Anger and Sadness

This study investigated kindergarten children's understanding of the causes of anger and sadness. Previous research has shown that before 6 or 7 years of age, children have difficulty distinguishing hypothetical situations designed to evoke anger from those designed to evoke sadness. In this project, 80 kindergarten children (ages 5-1 to 6-5, M = 5-10) predicted and explained protagonists' emotional responses to a variety of hypothetical events. The results showed that intentional harm was not the feature young children used to distinguish anger from sadness. Children predicted anger most often when they believed that protagonists could change undesirable situations and reinstate their goals and when children focused on the person or conditions that brought about undesirable situations. Children predicted sadness most often when they believed that goal reinstatement was impossible and focused on the losses that would ensue as a result.     

If You're Happy and You Know It: Positive Moods Reduce Age‐Related Differences in False Memory

When tested in the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm, children typically exhibit fewer false memories than do adolescents or adults. Here, participants’ moods and the valence of word lists were manipulated to explore the mechanism responsible for this developmental reversal in memory performance. Children (7‐ to 8‐year‐olds), adolescents (11‐ to 12‐year‐olds), and young adults (18‐ to 22‐year‐olds; N = 270) were assigned to one of three induced mood conditions and were presented with emotional word lists. In negative moods, adolescents and adults falsely recalled more negative information than did children, showing the typical developmental reversal effect. This effect, however, was eliminated when participants were in positive moods. The findings provide support for associative‐activation theory and have important implications for our understanding of the development of emotional false memories.     

The Development of Children's Memory for the Time of Past Events

Previous research on adults' and children's memory for the time of past events has generally overlooked the fundamental distinction between knowledge of temporal distance in the past and knowledge of temporal locations. This study applied the distinction to the development of time memory. Children of 4, 6, and 8 years of age experienced 2 target events, one 7 weeks and the other 1 week before testing. They were asked to judge the relative recency of the 2 events and to localize the older event by time of day, day of the week, month, and season. Even the 4-year-olds were successful in judging the relative recency of the 2 events and localizing the older event by time of day. However, on the 3 longer time scales, only the 6- and 8-year-olds could localize the older event, reason about possible times that it could have occurred, or tell the present time. The great accuracy of the time-of-day judgments at all 3 ages is almost certainly not due to distance-type information. The results show the separate development of distance and location judgments.     

Developmental Changes in Event Memory

Do developmental differences exist in children's organization of event memories? We explored this question by examining children's recall of standard features of a repeated event versus features that deviated from that event. 4- and 7-year-old children experienced an initially unfamiliar laboratory event (standard event) 1 or 3 times. Following the last visit, deviations from the standard event were introduced (deviation event). Children's recall was assessed 1 week later under free recall and contextual recall conditions. Younger children had more difficulty than older children distinguishing between the standard and deviation visits. That is, 4-year-olds were more confused regarding which event features occurred in the different event visits. 7-year-olds, in contrast, did a better job of correctly remembering the features of the standard and deviation visits. Implications for developmental changes in the organization of general and specific event memory are discussed.     

情绪刺激对细节信息记忆的影响简

情绪与记忆的关系很长时间以来都是当今认知神经科学研究的热点课题,对于情绪记忆的研究,研究者也提出了许多理论模型.目前已有大量的研究表明情绪刺激可以促进人们的记忆,但是对于情绪对细节信息的记忆的影响,已有的观点并不一致,研究的结果也不尽相同.有研究证明情绪可以增强对细节信息的记忆,也有研究得出了相反的结论,还有研究者认为情绪增强了中心细节的记忆,却削弱了外围细节的记忆.     

Children's responses to different forms of expression of anger between adults

Anger is not a homogeneous stimulus, but can vary on a variety of dimensions and domains. This study examined children's responses to anger as a function of: (a) the mode of expression of anger (nonverbal, verbal, verbal-physical), and (b) whether or not anger between others was resolved. Children were presented with videotaped segments of angry and friendly interactions and asked questions concerning their responses. All angry interactions, including non-verbal anger, were perceived as negative events and elicited negative emotions. Unresolved anger was perceived as a far more negative event than resolved anger and induced greater feelings of anger and distress in children. Verbal-physical anger was perceived as the most negative form of expression of anger. Boys reported more angry feelings in response to anger than girls. Distress responding was greater in children from homes in which there was interparent physical aggression and in children with behavior problems. Finally, the utility of this methodology is supported by relatively high test-retest reliability and limited evidence of context effects.     

Developmental Antecedents and Social and Academic Consequences of Stereotype‐Consciousness in Middle Childhood

The present study, which included 124 children ages 5–11, examined developmental antecedents and social and academic consequences of stereotype‐consciousness, defined as awareness of others’ stereotypes. Greater age and more frequent parent‐reported racial socialization practices were associated with greater likelihood of stereotype‐consciousness. Children who knew of broadly held stereotypes more often explained hypothetical negative interracial encounters between White actors and Black targets as discriminatory. In addition, among African American and Latino children who knew about broadly held stereotypes, diagnostic testing conditions led to stereotype threat effects on a standardized working memory task. Findings are discussed in terms of the contribution to our understanding of children’s developing thinking about and response to stereotypes and related phenomena.     

Emotion Regulation Strategies That Promote Learning: Reappraisal Enhances Children’s Memory for Educational Information

The link between emotion regulation and academic achievement is well documented. Less is known about specific emotion regulation strategies that promote learning. Six‐ to 13‐year‐olds (N = 126) viewed a sad film and were instructed to reappraise the importance, reappraise the outcome, or ruminate about the sad events; another group received no regulation instructions. Children viewed an educational film, and memory for this was later assessed. As predicted, reappraisal strategies more effectively attenuated children’s self‐reported emotional processing. Reappraisal enhanced memory for educational details relative to no instructions. Rumination did not lead to differences in memory from the other instructions. Memory benefits of effective instructions were pronounced for children with poorer emotion regulation skill, suggesting the utility of reappraisal in learning contexts.     

The Long-Term Effects of Parental Divorce on the Mental Health of Young Adults: A Developmental Perspective

The effects of parental divorce during childhood and adolescence on the mental health of young adults (age 23) were examined, using the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a longitudinal, multimethod, nationally representative survey of all children born in Great Britain during 1 week in 1958 ( N = 17,414). Children were assessed at birth and subsequently followed up at ages 7, 11, 16, and 23 by means of maternal and child interviews, and by psychological, school, and medical assessments. Parental divorce had a moderate, long-term negative impact on adult mental health, as measured by the Malaise Inventory total score, and controlling for economic status, children's emotional problems, and school performance preceding marital dissolution. The likelihood of scoring above the clinical cutoff of the Malaise Inventory rose from 8% to 11% due to parental divorce. This indicated that the relative risk of serious emotional disorders increased in the aftermath of divorce, but that the large majority of individuals did not exhibit such risks. Path analyses revealed that the negative effects of divorce on adult mental health operated indirectly through higher emotional problems and lower levels of school achievement and family economic status at age 16. Results related to timing of divorce, remarriage, and interactions between age 7 emotional problems and divorce, and between age 7 emotional problems and child gender, are also discussed.     

Daily emotional states as reported by children and adolescents

Hour-to-hour emotional states reported by children, ages 9-15, were examined in order to evaluate the hypothesis that the onset of adolescence is associated with increased emotional variability. These youths carried electronic pagers for 1 week and filled out reports on their emotional states in response to signals received at random times. To evaluate possible age-related response sets, a subset of children was asked to use the same scales to rate the emotions shown in drawings of 6 faces. The expected relation between daily emotional variability and age was not found among the boys and was small among the girls. There was, however, a linear relation between age and average mood states, with the older participants reporting more dysphoric average states, especially more mildly negative states. An absence of age difference in the ratings of the faces indicated that this relation could not be attributed to age differences in response set. Thus, these findings provide little support for the hypothesis that the onset of adolescence is associated with increased emotionality but indicate significant alterations in everyday experience associated with this age period.