The Effects of Repeated Experience on Children's Suggestibility

• Published in: Developmental psychology Vol. 35; no. 6; pp. 1462 - 1477
• Main Authors: Powell, Martine B, Roberts, Kim P, Ceci, Stephen J, Hembrooke, Helene
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-11-1999
• Subjects: Age Differences; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Child psychology; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Cognition - physiology; Developmental psychology; Events; Experiences (Events); Female; Fixed Interval Reinforcement; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Male; Memory; Mental Recall - physiology; Performance Factors; Periodicity; Psychology, Child; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Random Allocation; Recall; Recall (Learning); Recall (Psychology); Repeated; Repeated Measures; Repetition Effects; Suggestibility; Suggestion; Variable Interval Reinforcement; Young children; Human; Preschool age; School age; Suggestibility; Memory; Cognition; Recall; Experimental study; Child; Repetition
• ISSN: 0012-1649; 1939-0599
• DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.35.6.1462

The effect of suggestive questions on 3- to 5-year-old and 6- to 8-year-old children's recall of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined. The event included fixed (identical) items as well as variable items where a new instantiation represented the item in each occurrence of the series. Relative to reports of children who participated in a single occurrence, children's reports about fixed items of the repeated event were more accurate and less contaminated by false suggestions. For variable items, repeated experience led to a decline in memory of the specific occurrence; however, there was no increase in susceptibility to suggestions about details that had not occurred. Most errors after repeated experience were intrusions of details from nontarget occurrences. Although younger children and children who were interviewed a while after the event were more suggestible, respectively, than older children and those interviewed soon after the event, repeated experience attenuated these effects.