La Rooy,
D., Pipe, M.E., &
Reminiscence is “the elicitation of new information” across “repeated retrieval
attempts.” Hypermnesia
is “increases in recall across several recall attempts.” These phenomena have yet to be reliably
tested on children, and there is some question as to whether repeated
interviewing creates difficulty with suggestion. Originally Erdelyi
and Becker (1974) had participants study lists of words or pictures, and they
found that recall was improved over repeated tests. These results have been supported by
subsequent research, including real world events like the O.J. Simpson
trial. This effect has been demonstrated
in children by Ballard, Ammons, and Irion. Dent and Stephenson found children remembered
more details about a movie at a repeat interview the next day, but did not
increase as more time passed. This study
seeks to examine reminiscence and hypermnesia in
children’s eyewitness memory.
Experiment 1: Forty children were introduced to a “friendly
pirate” with whom they performed 20 event-activities. Children were interviewed immediately
afterward and again 24 hours later, half were told before the initial interview
that they would be interviewed again later.
Transcripts were coded as correct for any actions or objects presented
as well as errors labeled intrusions (item or event not present) or distortions
(incorrect description. Results: To determine hypermnesia
a mixed-model ANOVA determined that children had more corrects than errors,
there was a change over the interviews in details reported, and a significant
interaction. Results showed that correct
recall increased and errors remained constant across the two interviews. Reminiscence was analyzed with a mixed-model ANOVA
which found cumulative recall of details to be significant over the two
interviews, more corrects than errors, and an interaction between the two. The found that of the information reported at
the interview 24 hours later, 92% was correct.
Interview instructions had no effect.
Experiment 2: Children from
experiment 1 participated in three follow up interviews at 5 minute intervals
six months after the original interview.
During the 5 minute intervals children were asked to draw pictures
either unrelated to the event or about the friendly pirate with hopes of
increasing the amount of hypermnesia on subsequent
interviews. Results: Analyses for hypermnesia
revealed that the only significant factor was that children still recalled more
corrects than errors. Meanwhile,
examining reminiscence revealed that children still reported more corrects than
errors, but also “cumulative recall of details differed as a function of interview,”
and there was a significant interaction.
These results are inconsistent with previous findings of hypermnesia in adults.
Experiment 3: Experiment
three sought to make all interviews the same (in experiment 1 the interviewer
asked more questions and attempted to facilitate remembering, this was
eliminated in experiment 2). Children
were interviewed once immediately after the event and then twice six months
later with a 24 hour interval between. Results: Analysis showed that children still reported
more corrects than errors, but that the number of details reported decreased
over the 6 month interval. Analyses for
reminiscence found children still reported more corrects than errors,
cumulative recall of details increased across the delay, but there was no
significant interaction. Analyses for hypermnesia over the interviews found only that children
still reported more corrects than errors.
Analyses for reminiscence showed again that children reported more
corrects than errors, there was an increase in cumulative recall, and a
significant interaction.
General Discussion:
Reminiscence “proved to be reliable across all three experiments.” However, hypermnesia
could not be reliably reproduced.
Despite participants experiencing forgetting over the 6 month delay, new
information was still provided at interview, although the number of details
reported decreased over time. This is
consistent with current theory that children should be interviewed immediately
and also it does not matter whether children are informed that there will be a
second interview. According to the trace
integrity theory reminiscence and hypermnesia occur
“due to retrieval relearning or as a result of reintegration of the memory
trace.” In other words, children
forgetting the information over the six month delay made retrieval relearning
impossible due to a loss of the originally encoded material. While more real world events need to be
tested, some studies have shown that repeated interviewing improves long term
recall.
Important Legal
Disclaimer: The preceding are articles we read together in the Lampinen Lab Fall 2005 false memory reading group. By
clicking on the button next to the article you can see the summary of that
article. The summary was prepared by the student presenting that article and it
is of course the case that the views expressed in the summary do not
necessarily represent the views of the reading group as a whole, Dr. Lampinen, the Lampinen Lab,
Hugo's, the University of Arkansas, the Razorback Football or Basketball teams
(although we're not sure about cross country), people living down the street
from us, Bob Dylan, Jack Fate, our extended families, or anyone else for that
matter except for the student who wrote the summary (and they don't necessarily
believe what they wrote either).