Schreiber, N. & Parker, J.
F. Inviting witnesses to speculate: Effects of age and interaction on children’s
recall. Journal
of Experimental Child Psychology, 89, 31-52.
This article examines how suggestive interviewing can
lead to false memories in children. Some
of these techniques include repeated questioning, peer pressure, and
reinforcement. However, this article
examines one technique that has not received considerable attention and that is
“inviting speculation.” Wood et al.
(1998) describes three different forms of inviting speculation.
1.
asking what he/she thinks maybe happened.
2.
asking the child to pretend or imagine what happened.
3.
asking the child what could/might have happened or what
he/she could/have done.
Inviting children to speculate results in a form of
misinformation. This technique can have a great effect
because of its subtlety. Children are
asked to think of a situation that could have happened and to the child, in
that context, this does not seem to be misinformation. However, they can come to accept these
speculations as fact.
This
study looks at three different questions:
1.
Is there an
effect of age on speculation?
2.
Is there a
difference for observed actions and interactions?
3.
Is there a
difference on free and cued recall?
Method
68
kindergartners and 62 third graders watched one of six clown shows. During the show, the clown performed atypical
actions with common objects (i.e. comb hair with toothbrush, paint with
chocolate milk). The clown performed
half of the actions with the child (interaction) and half alone (observed
action). A couple weeks after the show,
the children were randomly assigned to either a control group or a speculation
group. The children in the speculation
group were invited to speculate on half of the actions. Two weeks after that (four weeks after the
show) the children were interviewed to elicit responses via free or cued
recall.
Results
Children in the speculation group produced more
script-consistent errors than the control group. When asked what really happened, the children
who were invited to speculate, reported their
speculations rather than what actually happened. The authors explain this as a retrieval
strategy where the children filled in the missing sections of the event with
script-consistent errors. One of the
predictions for the speculation on age was that younger children would be more
susceptible to the speculation effect than older children. However, there was no clear difference in age
for this effect. The third graders reported
as many, if not more, errors than the kindergartners. Another prediction was that observed actions
would be more susceptible to the speculation effect than interactions. Interactions did elicit fewer errors, but
there was no difference between these types in the control group. Also, cued recall resulted in fewer errors
and more correct responses than did free recall.
Discussion
Inviting to speculate can lead to false memories in
young children. This is even more
dangerous because of its subtlety because children do not realize they are
producing misinformation. This study
also showed that older children are just as susceptible to this effect as are
younger children. This poses a huge
problem with investigative interviewing.