Maltreated children's memory: Accuracy, suggestibility, and psychopathology.

Memory, suggestibility, stress arousal, and trauma-related psychopathology were examined in 328 3- to 16-year-olds involved in forensic investigations of abuse and neglect. Children's memory and suggestibility were assessed for a medical examination and venipuncture. Being older and scoring higher in cognitive functioning were related to fewer inaccuracies. In addition, cortisol level and trauma symptoms in children who reported more dissociative tendencies were associated with increased memory error, whereas cortisol level and trauma symptoms were not associated with increased error for children who reported fewer dissociative tendencies. Sexual and/or physical abuse predicted greater accuracy. The study contributes important new information to scientific understanding of maltreatment, psychopathology, and eyewitness memory in children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Source misattributions and the suggestibility of eyewitness memory.

Although the suggestibility of eyewitness memory is well documented, previous studies have not clearly established the extent to which misled Ss might come to believe they actually remember seeing the suggested details they report. To assess whether Ss confuse misleading suggestions for their "real memories" of a witnessed event, Ss were asked specific questions about their memory for the source of suggested items. The results of 5 experiments showed that misled Ss do sometimes come to believe they remember seeing items that were merely suggested to them, a phenomenon we refer to as the source misattribution effect. Nevertheless, the results also showed that the magnitude of this effect varies and that source misattributions are not an inevitable consequence of exposure to suggestions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Hypnotic-like" suggestibility in children and adults.

724 Ss of ages 6-22 were told that they were to be tested for imaginative ability, and were then given 8 standardized test suggestions as follows: Arm Lowering, Arm Levitation, Hand Lock, Thirst "Hallucination," Verbal Inhibition, Body Immobility, "Posthypnotic-Like" Response, and Selective Amnesia. The sexes did not differ in response to the suggestions. Ss between 6 and 12 were more "suggestible" than adults. Children of 8-10 showed the highest level of response. No differences in "suggestibility" were found among Ss of ages 14-22. Suggestibility in both children and adults was inversely related to "conscious" (verbalizable) resistance to the test suggestions. (29 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What the stories children tell can tell about their memory: Narrative skill and young children's suggestibility.

The authors examined the relation between children's narrative ability, which has been identified as an important contributor to memory development, and suggestibility. Across 2 studies, a total of 112 preschool-aged children witnessed a staged event and were subsequently questioned suggestively. Results from Study 1 indicated that children's ability to provide a high-quality narrative of the event was related to resistance to suggestive questions, and narrative ability appeared to supersede age as a predictor of such resistance. In Study 2, children's general language and narrative abilities were measured in addition to their ability to produce a high-quality narrative about the target event. These results replicated Study 1's findings that children's ability to produce a high-quality narrative of a previously experienced event predicted resistance to suggestion. However, the quality of children's autobiographical memory narratives predicted shifting from denial to assent. Findings are considered in light of narrative's role in memory development and underlying mechanisms that may explain children's suggestibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Desensitization, suggestibility, and pseudotherapy.

44 snake phobic Ss participated in laboratory experiments assessing the degree of fear change associated with systematic desensitization, no treatment, placebo treatment, and the trait of suggestibility. Desensitization Ss showed significantly greater fear reduction than controls, while placebo Ss changed no more than did untreated Ss. Successful desensitization was relatively independent of suggestibility. Desensitization of specific fears generalized positively to other fears, and among desensitization Ss, degree of fear change could be predicted from measurable aspects of therapy process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trauma, mental representation, and the organization of memory for mother-referent material

Research on the effects of child maltreatment and exposure to community violence suggests that children who experience these types of traumatic events may be at risk for alterations and biases in attention and memory similar to those that have been observed in adults suffering from traumatic stress reactions. Along these lines, attachment theory posits that representational models of relationships also may act as moderators of similar cognitive biases by selectively guiding children's attention to and processing of interpersonal stimuli. Building upon the trauma and attachment literatures, the present investigation examined the links among trauma, representational models of caregivers, and children's memory for mother-relevant information using an incidental recall task in a sample of maltreated (n = 71) and nonmaltreated (n = 102) children between the ages of 8 and 13 years. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that experiences of trauma and representational models of caregivers are associated with differences in the way children process and retrieve information about positive and negative mother attribute words. In particular, experiences of trauma initially were associated with increased insecurity in children's representational models. Moreover, the interaction of traumatic experience and security of mental representation predicted children's recall for mother attribute words: victimized children with insecure models recalled the highest proportion of negative mother stimuli. Trauma and mental representation did not have a consistent effect on structurally encoded aspects of recall. Results were discussed in terms of the ways in which children who have experienced trauma process information about their worlds. The importance of assessing functioning in multiple developmental domains when studying memory also was discussed.     

Mood, memory, and social judgments in children.

The influence of positive and negative moods on children's recall and recognition memory and impression-formation judgments was investigated in a two-list experimental design. A total of 161 schoolchildren, 8 to 10 years old, were presented with audiovisual information containing positive and negative details about 2 target children. Each presentation was preceded by happy or sad mood manipulations. One day later, the children were again placed in a happy or sad mood, and their recall and recognition memory and impression-formation judgments were assessed. Results showed that memory was better when (a) the children felt happy during encoding, retrieval, or both; (b) the material was incongruent with learning mood; (c) the 2 target characters were encountered in contrasting rather than in matching mood states; and (d) recall mood matched encoding mood. A happy mood increased the extremity of both positive and negative impression-formation judgments. Results are contrasted with experimental data obtained with normal or depressed adults, and implications are considered for contemporary theories of mood effects on cognition and for social-developmental research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychoneurosis and suggestibility.

"The main aim was to investigate the relationship between neuroticism and suggestibility, using a test which did not involve static ataxia. Hull's horizontal arm movement test was used, and confirming previous findings, neurotics moved more with suggestion than normals. Some movement occurred without suggestion (the neurotics tending to move more than the normals). There was no evidence of a difference in suggestability between the groups when they were matched for arm movement without suggestion, although such movement was slight. It is therefore impossible to conclude with certainty that neurotics respond more to suggestion." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-directed attention, awareness of bodily states, and suggestibility.

Two studies tested the hypothesis that self-directed attention would cause increased awareness of internal states and would thus reduce suggestibility effects. Exp I applied this reasoning to the experience of an emotion. 55 male undergraduates viewed moderately arousing slides of female nudes after being led to expect the slides to be either highly arousing or nonarousing. As predicted, ratings of the slides corresponded less with these experimentally manipulated anticipations when self-focus was heightened by the presence of a mirror than when it was not. Exp II examined a different internal experience: the perception of taste. Ss were 41 male and 31 female undergraduates. Some Ss were led to expect a strong flavor as part of a test series, and other Ss were led to expect a weak flavor. Ss high in private self-consciousness (assessed by the A. Fenigstein et al 1975 scale) were less affected by this expectancy manipulation and more accurate in reporting their actual internal state than Ss low in private self-consciousness. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive interviewing procedures and suggestibility in children's recall

In this study the authors examine the effects of procedures adapted from the cognitive interview of R. E. Geiselman, R.P. Fisher, D.P. MacKinnon, and H.L. Holland (1985) on children's recall following exposure to misleading suggestions. Children aged 5-7 years and 9-11 years saw a videotaped story and were presented with misleading or neutral information concerning story details. All were later given free- and cued-recall tests preceded by standard interview instructions or instructions that reinstated the encoding context and encouraged exhaustive reporting. Increased recall accuracy was found following cognitive interview instructions. Both age groups were susceptible to misleading suggestions, but susceptibility was unaffected by interview type. The authors discuss the implications for interviewing child witnesses.     

Prestige effects in body-sway suggestibility.

The effect of the prestige of E on body-sway suggestibility was assayed by measuring the influence of academic personnel on students. The findings, in general, were that body-sway suggestibility was heightened in response to individuals perceived as being prestigeful, most significantly among Ss already high in suggestibility. From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2GD87D. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recognition memory in preschool children.

Tested 18 males and 18 females from each of 2 age groups (mean ages, 37 and 53 mo) on a recognition test under each of 3 conditions: (a) verbal only, (b) visual only, and (c) verbal-visual. Correct recognition was obtained for all Ss. Older Ss, however, performed significantly better than younger. Neither age group benefited from E-provided labels; performance in the visual-only and visual-verbal conditions was comparable. It is concluded that the development of mechanisms other than verbal mediator production must account for any age-related improvement in recognition performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal learning and memory in children with myelomeningocele

Examined verbal learning and memory in children with myelomeningocele using the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT). Participants included 41 children with myelomeningocele, 8 to 15 years of age, 33 of whom had a history of shunted hydrocephalus, and 41 matched, unaffected controls. Children with myelomeningocele and shunted hydrocephalus performed worse than controls on the CVLT. They recalled as many words as controls on the first learning trial, but acquired words more slowly across trials, so that their overall recall was lower. Their learning was characterized by a pronounced recency effect. Their delayed recall of the original list was worse than controls, but not their recognition. Performance of children with myelomeningocele but without shunts was generally not significantly different from that of the other two groups, although they did demonstrate better long-delay free recall than children with shunts. Myelomeningocele is associated with significant retrieval problems when accompanied by shunted hydrocephalus.     

Discrimination and memory for symmetry in young children.

Conducted 3 experiments to assess the development of symmetry perception in children between the ages of 4 and 6 yrs. Exp I employed a learning task in which 72 Ss were asked at different times to discriminate vertically symmetrical, obliquely symmetrical, and horizontally symmetrical holistic patterns from asymmetrical ones. Results reveal a developmental progression: 4-yr-olds discriminated only vertical; 5-yr-olds, vertical and horizontal; and 6-yr-olds, vertical, horizontal, and oblique. Exp II retested the 18 6-yr-olds with fragmented patterns of the different symmetries; these Ss regressed to the performance level of 4-yr-olds and only discriminated vertical. Exp III, conducted with 18 Ss, used a memory-production task with new vertical, oblique, horizontal, and asymmetrical patterns constructed to 4, 5, or 6 elements. Measures of the goodness and accuracy of Ss' reproductions were consistent with data from the discrimination-learning experiments in terms of age, stimulus orientation, and stimulus complexity. These studies support the view that vertical symmetry is special perceptually and developmentally and that, after vertical, horizontal predominates, followed by oblique. The role of symmetry in early perceptual development and the value of child–adult perceptual comparisons are discussed. (55 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confidence judgments in children's and adult's event recall and suggestibility.

The present work investigated the role of children's and adults' metacognitive monitoring and control processes for unbiased event recall tasks and for suggestibility. Three studies were conducted in which children and adults indicated their degree of confidence that their answers were correct after (Study 1) and before (Study 2) answering either unbiased or misleading questions or (Study 3) forced-choice recognition questions. There was a strong tendency for overestimation of confidence regardless of age and question format. However, children did not lack the principal metacognitive competencies when these questions were asked in a neutral interview. Under misleading questioning, in contrast, children's monitoring skills were seriously impaired. Within each age group, better metacognitive differentiation was positively associated with recall accuracy in the suggestive interview. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structuralization, Trauma, and Attachment.

Attachment pathology results in deficit unconscious organizational processes within self-structure that predispose patients toward developing character disorders with many overdetermined, polysymptomatic profiles. The nature of developmental trauma on attachment capacities and corresponding emergent structuralization processes is intimately associated with a broad array of clinical presentations that are largely organized on borderline levels of functioning. The author addresses the question of trauma and structuralization and presents various case illustrations gathered from clinical observations. By examining various subgroups of structural pathology, the author hopes to advance knowledge of attachment-related disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adaptive memory: Survival processing increases both true and false memory in adults and children.

Research has shown that processing information in a survival context can enhance the information's memorability. The current study examined whether survival processing can also decrease the susceptibility to false memories and whether the survival advantage can be found in children. In Experiment 1, adults rated semantically related words in a survival, moving, or pleasantness scenario. Even though the survival advantage was demonstrated for true recall, there also was an unexpected increase in false memories in the survival condition. Similarly, younger and older children in Experiment 2 displayed superior true recall but also higher rates of false memories in a survival condition. Experiment 3 showed that in adults false memories were also more likely to occur in the survival condition when categorized lists instead of Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM)-like word lists were used. In all three experiments, no survival recall advantage was found when net accuracy scores that take the total output into account were used. These findings question whether survival processing is an adaptive memory strategy per se, as such processing not only enriches true recall but simultaneously amplifies the vulnerability to false memories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of grammatical-sensitivity, phonological, and short-term memory skills in normally achieving and learning disabled children.

The development of a variety of grammatical-sensitivity and phonological skills was studied in 138 normally achieving, 65 reading-disabled, 63 arithmetic-disabled, and 15 attention deficit disordered (hyperactive) children 7 to 14 years old. Word recognition and phonics skills were highly related, and reading comprehension and phonics skills were less so. Grammatical sensitivity and short-term memory were significantly correlated with a variety of reading skills. Children with a reading disability showed a significant lag in the development of grammatical sensitivity and short-term memory and an even greater deficit in phonological skills. The children with a specific arithmetic disability had adequate grammatical abilities, but below-average memory skills at all ages. Children with an attention deficit but normal achievement scores did not have any major difficulties except on a reading-comprehension task that appears to have significant memory and attention components. The acquisition of reading skills is closely related to the development of grammatical and phonological skills, and deficiencies in these areas are related to difficulties with the acquisition of written language skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Theory-of-mind development influences suggestibility and source monitoring.

According to the mental-state reasoning model of suggestibility, 2 components of theory of mind mediate reductions in suggestibility across the preschool years. The authors examined whether theory-of-mind performance may be legitimately separated into 2 components and explored the memory processes underlying the associations between theory of mind and suggestibility, independent of verbal ability. Children 3 to 6 years old completed 6 theory-of-mind tasks and a postevent misinformation procedure. Contrary to the model's prediction, a single latent theory-of-mind factor emerged, suggesting a single-component rather than a dual-component conceptualization of theory-of-mind performance. This factor provided statistical justification for computing a single composite theory-of-mind score. Improvements in theory of mind predicted reductions in suggestibility, independent of verbal ability (Study 1, n = 72). Furthermore, once attribution biases were controlled (Study 2, n = 45), there was also a positive relationship between theory of mind and source memory, but not recognition performance. The findings suggest a substantial, and possibly causal, association between theory-of-mind development and resistance to suggestion, driven specifically by improvements in source monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)