Citation

Roebers CM, Schneider W. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 2000; 14(6): 509-526.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/1099-0720(200011/12)14:6<509::AID-ACP668>3.0.CO;2-W

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The study examined developmental patterns of the negative effect of misleading post-event information in two different kinds of eyewitness interviews. A total of 284 subjects aged between five and 64 years were shown a short video about a theft and three weeks as well as four weeks later questioned about it. The social pressure in the interview after three weeks was manipulated by asking half of the subjects suggestive and misleading questions. The other half was asked open-ended and unbiased questions. In the neutral interview four weeks later, all subjects were asked the same set of recognition questions about the event. The results revealed that preschoolers in particular had problems with the interplay between cognitive and social factors (social pressure induced through the wording of the misleading questions) in the interview setting after three weeks. In the neutral recognition test, all age groups were shown to suffer from prior misinformation to about the same extent. However, with an exception in the group of 6-year-old children the negative effect of prior misinformation on the accuracy of recognition proved to be due to items that were peripheral to the observed event. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Language: en