Memory loci of suggestibility development: Comment on Ceci, Ross, and Toglia (1987).

We explore three explanations of the age trends in susceptibility to leading questions that were reported by Ceci, Ross, and Toglia (1987). The first explanation, that proposed by Ceci et al., is that suggestibility effects are memorially real (i.e., leading questions actually distort target memory) and the magnitudes of such effects vary ontogenetically. The second explanation is that suggestibility effects are memorially real, but they are developmentally invariant. Apparent age changes in suggestibility are said to arise from correlated (and uncontrolled) changes in learning or forgetting rates. The third explanation is that suggestibility effects are not memorially real but, rather, are epiphenomena of certain performance advantages that are intrinsic to control conditions, such as the distractor novelty effect and the retention enhancement effect. Here, apparent age changes in suggestibility are viewed as artifacts of chronological shifts in subjects' ability to benefit from these performance advantages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)