Melnyk, L., Bruck, M. (2004). Timing
moderates the effects of repeated suggestive interviewing on children’s
eyewitness memory. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 613-631.
One standard of memory is that
repetition promotes recall; however there is very little evidence to examine
whether the repetition of misinformation promotes false memories. This study examines this idea using a
particular type of false memory, ones that are a result of suggestive
interviews where misinformation has been presented. It also examines the affect suggestive
interviews have on children.
Previous studies
have had mixed results of repeated neutral interviews and the authors conclude
that there may be a time interval that may limit the benefits of this type of
methodology. In regards to suggestive
interviews with misinformation, previous studies have not isolated the effects
of timing on false memories and the effects of the repetition of misinformation
have had on false memories. If the
repetition of (mis)information is solely sufficient
to intensify the facilitation and misinformation effects, the children who had
both suggestive interviews should show more of these effects than those who
only received one suggestive interview.
If the timing of the interviews is what intensifies the effects, then
there should be no difference between the children who had one or two
suggestive interviews.
Experiment 1
Pairs of
preschoolers interacted with a magician who performed two tricks. Some children had suggestive interviews
approximately 14 and 25 days afterwards.
A control group did not participate in the suggestive interviews. The first memory test occurred approximately
40 days after the show during which all children gave free recall and completed
a probed recognition task. Approximately
21 weeks later, all of the children had another memory test with the same
procedures as the first.
The magic show
used 20 target details and were divided into five scenes (setting up, ball
trick, water trick, the fall, clean-up) and each leading detail was paired with
a misleading detail for the suggestive interview (‘The magician laughed when
she fell’ or ‘The magician cried when she fell.’) Each child received five leading suggestions
and five misleading suggestion with one leading and one misleading from each of
the scenes.
For the memory
test, all of the children gave free recall of the magic show. The interviewer prompted the children to tell
her “one more thing” until the child could not report anything else. Then each child was asked 20 yes/no
questions: five of them about the
leading suggestions, five about the misleading questions, five about leading non-suggestions
and five about misleading non-suggestions.
The control group that did not participate in the suggestive interviews
was asked about ten leading non-suggestions and ten
misleading non-suggestions. For the
follow-up memory test, a new experimenter repeated the same procedures as in
the initial memory test.
Results
The inclusion of a
control group showed that the benefits of suggestive interviewing pertained to
only suggested details. If the
suggestions had shown a general facilitation effect, then the timing groups
(those who received the early interview, the late interview or both interviews)
should have had higher accuracy on the leading non-suggestions than the control
group, which did not happen. The three
timing groups had the same scores as the control group on the misleading
suggestions, which shows that the misinformation presented to the timing groups
did not negatively affect their memory for other details.
The results show
that when the timing is controlled, repeating suggestive interviews does not
boost facilitation or misinformation effects.
The results also show the long-term effects:
1.
A decrease in unprompted recall over time.
2.
False recall increased while the
facilitation effects were the same in both memory tests.
3.
The size of the misinformation effect
decreased between memory tests which was due to an
increase in false recall for the misleading non-suggestions and not a decrease
in recall for the misleading suggestions.
Experiment 2
Experiment 1
showed that the repetition of suggestive interviews isolated from timing had
the same effect as a single presentation of suggestions. Experiment 2 examines the effects of timing
and repetition when the interviews are presented during a time to increase
consolidation and misinformation effects.
The first interview came 2 days after the magic show and the second
interview came 2 days before the memory test.
The hypothesis is that if very early suggestive interviewing
consolidates memory, then the children who had the very early interview will
more accurately recall more leading suggestions. Also, the authors hypothesize that the
children who participated in a very late interview would demonstrate greater
misinformation effects than those who had only a very early interview.
Results
There was a
significant facilitation effect that resulted from very early leading
suggestions. Very early or very late
misleading suggestions resulted in significant misinformation effects. And the children who received both the very
early and very late suggestive interviews showed both a facilitation effect and
a misinformation effect.
General Discussion
The purpose of this study was to isolate the
effects of timing and repetition on false memories in children. To extend the previous literature, the
authors included a third timing group besides only an early interview and only
a late interview, a group that had both the early and the late interviews. In Experiment 2, the authors varied their
definition of early and late to examine the effects of consolidation and recency.
In Experiment 1,
there were significant facilitation and misinformation effects regardless of
the timing and number of suggestive interviews.
Exposure to true and false information did not increase children’s
suggestibility nor did it increase facilitation effects. In Experiment 2 where the timing of the
interviews was timed to increase consolidation effects, facilitation effects
were only found in children who received the very early interview. The results of these experiments showed that
suggestive interviews occurring within 4 weeks improved recall for leading
suggestions. The facilitation effect was
not amplified by a second interview.
In Experiment 2,
the children who received two interviews showed greater misinformation effects
than those who only received one. This
study provided the first evidence that repeated presentations of misinformation
increased children’s suggestibility.
Looking at Experiments 1 and 2 together suggests that timing moderates
the effects of repetition as misinformation effects were only amplified when
both the very early and very late interviews were given.
These results
suggest that even if a child has not participated in suggested interview for a
number of months, initial misinformation effects still remain, particularly
when direct questions are asked. Also,
reminding children of true events is beneficial, this may be difficult to
implement in the real world as the interviewer may not know what actually
happened. And finally, while these
results show that repeated interviewing takes away from the accuracy of
children’s memory, there still should be some concern when only one interview
is conducted.