Memory Development: Demonstrating How Repeated Questioning Leads to False Memories

Recruit approximately 50 healthy 5- to 6-year-olds with no history of developmental disorders. For the purposes of this demonstration, only one child is tested. Larger sample sizes are recommended when conducting any experiments.

Note that the large sample size is to account for attrition or loss of participants. This procedure uses a longitudinal, multi-session design that requires children to complete a specific number of interviews in a specific amount of time. Any children who miss a session must be excluded from data analyses.

1. Data collection

1. Gather the necessary materials.
   1. Interview the child’s parent to identify events the child has and has not experienced in the last 12 months.
   2. Design 10 vignettes, including five true events, three check events, and two test events.
   3. Record true events that consist of actual events the child experienced in the previous year as reported by their parents. Determine the general accuracy of a child’s memories with these events.
   1. Example: “You went to Disney World and ate a turkey leg.”
   4. Create check events that consist of events the child has not experienced. These events provide another measure of children’s accuracy, and they also provoke children to say no to some events, so they don’t get into a habit of just answering yes to every question.
      1. Example: “You saw a baby alligator eat an apple on an airplane.”
   5. Create test events that consist of believable events the parents report their child has not experienced. These are the events that may or may not generate false memories.
      1. Example: “You went to the hospital, because your finger got caught in a mousetrap.”
   6. Print each event on an index card.
2. Introduction
   1. Say to the child: “I am going to read some things that may have happened to you, and I want you to think real hard about each one of them. Try to remember if it really happened. We made this list up by talking to your mother and father to get them to tell us about things that really happened to you when you were younger, but not all of the things I am going to read to you really happened.”
3. Test
   1. Sit near the child while holding the event index cards.
   2. Have the child select a card at random, and then read it to them.
   3. After reading, ask: “Did that happen?”
   4. Continue until all the cards have been read.
   5. Repeat this procedure 5x over 5 weeks.
   6. Record the child’s responses, and then transcribe them for future analysis.

2. Analysis

1. For each session, code the child’s “yes” responses separately for true events and test events.
2. Use an analysis of variance to determine if there are differences between the two types of events presented to the child in sessions one, three, and five.