• Reality monitoring: distinguishing between memories of real and imagined events.
• Source monitoring: determining the origin of one’s memories.
• Reality monitoring model: (Johnson & Raye, 1981; Johnson et al., 1993) Memory traces from different sources contain different qualitative characteristics.

METHOD

· 96 (51 male & 45 female) from four age groups (preschool, grade 2, grade 6, and college) participated.

· 36 actions grouped by category (See Table 1).

® Performed-self: 6 actions, one from each category

® Performed-other: 6 actions, one from each category

® Imagined-self: 6 actions, one from each category

® Imagined-other: 6 actions, one from each category…….= 24 actions

** Remaining 12 actions, 2 from each category, appeared as distracters on

Session 1- a practice trial was ran to make sure the children could distinguish real and imagined events. Then the experimenter read aloud a list of 24 actions. It was counterbalanced whether the participant received the experimenter or themselves as the subject of action and whether the action was to be performed or imagined. The subject was allotted 5 seconds to imagine the action. All objects were presented on a table in front of them during the procedure. The experiment then left the room and the experimenters rated the child’s anxiety. During a 5-minute retention interval, children were given a short-term memory task as well as a self-report measure of anxiety.

After the retention interval, children received a three-choice discrimination task designed to measure reality monitoring and recognition. After the practice trials were ran, the options the experimenter presented narrowed to "real", "imagined", and "never".

All 36 activities were present in the form of a statement. Children who repeatedly gave the same answer were given a "bias check" question.

Session 2- participants received the same 3-choice discrimination task. Children received a small toy for participating and adults received psychological credit for general psychology.

RESULTS

See Figure 1

• Age differences were significant for imagined items only.
• Preschoolers performed significantly worse then 6^th graders and adults.
• 2^nd graders’ performance was not significantly different than any other age group
• Preschoolers performed above chance for imagined items.
• The bias to discriminate performed items better than imagined items was significant for the preschoolers and 2^nd graders but not the older age groups.

• The only condition under which performance did not differ significantly from chance was when preschoolers discriminated imagined items after the delay.
• Reality monitoring scores were higher for performed items than for imagined items.
• The discrepancy between performed and imagined items was significant at both time 1 & time 2….the difference was larger after the 1-week delay.
• Reality monitoring scores decreased significantly more during the delay for imagined items than performed items.
• Reality monitoring scores were higher when the participants were the agents of action ("self") than when another person was the agent of action ("other").

• Reality monitoring scores were higher for actions involving the use of objects than for actions without the use of objects.
• The use of objects had a significant effect only for imagined items
• The effect of object use on the reality monitoring of imagined items was notably larger when tested after 1 week than when tested immediately.

• Preschoolers’ recognition scores were significantly lower than those of all other age groups.
• Recognition was better for items belonging to categories of dissimilar actions than for those belonging to categories of similar actions.
• Recognition scores were higher for actions involving objects than actions involving no objects.

• Preschoolers reported significantly more false alarms than adults, but only marginally more false alarms than 2^nd graders and 6^th graders.
• False alarms were reported as imagined more often than real.
• More false alarms were made after the 1-week delay than immediately.
• At time 1, preschoolers were significantly more likely than 2^nd & 6^th graders, and marginally more likely than adults, to falsely identify a new item as "imagined".
• At time 2, preschoolers were significantly more likely than adults, and marginally more likely then 6^th graders, to falsely identify a new item as "real".
• Both 6^th graders & adults demonstrated a significant bias to report that a falsely recognized action was imagined rather than real after the delay.
• The false alarm rate was higher when objects were not used than when objects were used.

• Preschoolers generally able to monitor reality of ongoing experience. This contrasts Piaget’s belief that children can’t distinguish reality and fantasy.
• Developmental differences in reality monitoring occurred primarily for imagined events. The fact that 6^th graders did not differ significantly from adults implies that the ability to engage in reality monitoring is fully developed by the age of 11 or 12….consistent with Piaget.
• Reality monitoring model: preschoolers’ memories may contain fewer cognitive operation cue, perhaps due to a failure to use as many cognitive operations or a failure to encode them.
• Preschoolers’ reality monitoring scores were inflated due to a small denominator

• Imagined events could be considered less distinctive than performed events b/c imagined events might have perceptual information along with cognitive information.
• This could lead to false accusations in eyewitness testimony, specifically in children.

• Cognitive operation cues associated with imagined actions may fade more rapidly over time than the sensory cues associated with performed actions.
• Long intervals b/w the event and time of report seem detrimental for adults and children. (In legal reporting, the delay is much longer than the 1-week interval in the present study.)
• Repeated memory tests may have negative effects. The distracters in initial session may cause confusion on the 2^nd test and participants may think that these items were presented. However, other reports, Parker (1995), say that children performed better after a delay if no immediate test was given.

• Reality monitoring was better when the participant was the agent of action. This does not support the original expectations from the reality monitoring model. However, the reality monitoring model has another explanation. It suggests that personalized elaborations may enhance reality monitoring; hence, the self as the agent is more memorable than another. (Once again, not good for eye witness testimony.)

• The results suggest that similarity of memory cues may not affect reality monitoring in all contexts.

• Imagining the use of an object may be more reflective and involve a larger number of cognitive operations than imagining objectless actions, leading to more source cues.

• Participants reported new items as "imagined" more often than "real"…HOWEVER this was only significant for the older age groups after the delay.
• Very young children were more susceptible than the older age groups to misidentify an event that never happened as one that really did happened.

• Recognition was found to be unrelated to reality monitoring.
• Short-term memory was not associated with reality monitoring.
• Thus, these dissociations support the notion that memory for content and memory for source are 2 different types of memory that do not necessarily involve the same underlying cognitive processes.

• When children learn incorrect information from an external source, they may form an image of that suggested scenario and confuse the actual event with this image.
• An emotional reaction may enhance reality monitoring by serving as a source cue, or it may serve as a distraction from processing other contextual information that would produce more helpful source cues (Johnson et al., 1993).