Search

Source monitoring (SM), the ability to connect memories to specific sources accurately, and to distinguish between reference points for information, is essential in mediating children's various social and cognitive functions. The accuracy of SM can significantly affect a child's basic knowledge and assumptions about the world. This review summarizes the scientific literature concerning child SM based on the findings of applied and experimental studies. Specifically, we cover the literature on children's SM training, targeting strategies, and training methods that influence the accuracy of children's SM. Based on the source-monitoring framework, we introduce children's SM performance, with an inherent focus on the underlying mechanisms. Moreover, the development and evaluation of a child's SM ability are discussed. Finally, we examine studies on children's SM skill training in terms of applicability, thus revealing challenges and new directions for follow-up studies. This review will be a basis for integrating currently available information and identifying potential topics for further investigation., Author(s): Seungjin Lee [sup.2] , Minkyeong Shin [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Portland, OR, USA (2) https://ror.org/025h1m602, grid.258676.8, 0000 0004 0532 8339, Sanghuh College of Humanities, Konkuk University, , Seoul, Republic [...]

Problem University students are at a critical stage for academic achievement and independent living but many do not follow healthy eating and physical activity lifestyle behaviors, negatively affecting their health and development. The factors influencing these lifestyle behaviors are complex and not well understood. Purpose and Methods This ethics approved study explored the associations between childhood memories of parenting styles, current self-efficacy, outcome expectancies and lifestyle behaviors related to healthy eating and physical activity. Using data collected from a randomly selected sample of university students, a series of hypotheses were tested using partial least squares regression analysis. Results The results showed that childhood memories of responsive parenting style were significantly associated with self-efficacy, which in turn was significantly associated with outcome expectancies, healthy eating and physically active lifestyles. Conclusions This study contributes to knowledge about how parenting styles can influence the development of self-efficacy and healthy eating and physically active lifestyle behaviors in young adults. This knowledge adds to knowledge about the development of effective interventions to support health behaviors., Introduction There is a growing burden on society from preventable chronic health conditions that are impacted by high blood pressure and excess body mass (WHO, 2009); with 39% of adults [...]

Purpose: This study investigated the impact of lexical processes on target word recall in sentence span tasks in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Participants were 42 children (ages 8;2-12;3 [years;months]): 21 with SLI and 21 typically developing peers matched on age and nonverbal IQ. Children completed a sentence span task in which target words to be recalled varied in word frequency and neighborhood density. Two measures of lexical processes were examined: the number of nontarget competitor words activated during a gating task (lexical cohort competition) and word definitions. Results: Neighborhood density had no effect on word recall for either group. However, both groups recalled significantly more high- than low-frequency words. Lexical cohort competition and specificity of semantic representations accounted for unique variance in the number of target word recalled in the SLI and chronological age-matched (CA) groups combined. Conclusions: Performance on verbal working memory span tasks for both SLI and CA children is influenced by word frequency, lexical cohorts, and semantic representations. Future studies need to examine the extent to which verbal working memory capacity is a cognitive construct independent of extant language knowledge representations. KEY WORDS: SLI, verbal working memory, lexical processing, word frequency, neighborhood density, Specific language impairment (SLI) refers to a developmental disability in which children exhibit difficulty learning language in the absence of hearing loss or other emotional and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as [...]

The present study extends the reality monitoring framework by examining whether a portion of the phenomenal characteristics by which perceived and imagined events are theorized to differ appear in event narratives at different rates. The study analyzed the narratives of childhood events that participants either reportedly experienced or denied experiencing but imagined. Two types of events were included: emotional and neutral. In comparison to imagined events, participants' narratives of experienced childhood events were lengthier and contained a greater percentage of words indicative of cognitive processes. Imagined events contained a greater percentage of emotion words. There were no significant differences in perceptual processes. In some cases the findings differed significantly across the emotional and neutral events. This study provides the first available evidence that memory characteristics extend to narratives and thereby distinguish experienced from imagined childhood events., According to the reality monitoring framework (Johnson & Raye, 1981), perceived (i.e., experienced) and imagined events have different characteristics. Perceived events are theorized to contain greater contextual (e.g., time, day), [...]

Children who were 4 to 8 years of age were asked to perform a sort-recall task where only half of the items had to be studied and remembered. Following a baseline trial, children were assigned to 1 of 3 groups and were prompted to use either a sorting or a clustering strategy (experimental groups) or were not prompted at all (control group). Children were seen 2 weeks later and given a new set of items for the transfer-of-training sort--recall phases. Levels of recall and strategy use (sorting, clustering, multiple strategy use) were higher for older children, typical items, sorting prompts, and trials with repeated presentations of test materials. Older children used more strategies than younger children, although even 4-year-olds used more than one strategy when performing the memory tasks. Results of multivariate cluster analyses revealed systematic individual differences, separating low performers from production-deficient children and high performers. Overall, findings show that clustering appears to be an early developing, but less effective strategy, with multiple-strategy use and especially sorting being used more frequently and effectively by older children. Keywords: recall, selective memory strategy, strategic memory task, prompting

This longitudinal study was designed to (a) examine changes in children's deliberate memory across the 1st grade; (b) characterize the memory-relevant aspects of their classrooms; and (c) explore linkages between the children's performance and the language their teachers use in instruction. To explore contextual factors that may facilitate the development of skills for remembering, 107 first graders were assessed 3 times with a broad set of tasks, while extensive observations were made in the 14 classrooms from which these children were sampled. When the participating teachers were classified as high or low in terms of their 'mnemonic orientation,' in part on the basis of their use of metacognitive information and requests for deliberate remembering during instruction in language arts and mathematics, differences were observed in the use of mnemonic techniques by the children in their classes. By the end of the year, the children drawn from these 2 groups of classrooms differed in their spontaneous use of simple behavioral strategies for remembering and in their response to training in more complex verbally based mnemonic techniques. Keywords: memory development, strategies, classroom context, teachers' memory-relevant language

Finding hidden objects in space is a fundamental ability that has received considerable research attention from both a developmental and a comparative perspective. Tracking the rotational displacements of containers and hidden objects is a particularly challenging task. This study investigated the ability of 3-, 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old children and great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) to (a) visually track rotational displacements of a baited container on a platform and (b) infer its displacements by using the changes of position or orientation of 3 landmarks: an object on a container, the color of the containers, and the color of the platform on which the containers rested. Great apes and 5-year-old and older children successfully tracked visible rotations, but only children were able to infer the location of a correct cup (with the help of landmarks) after invisible rotations. The ability to use landmarks changed with age so that younger children solved this task only with the most explicit marker on the baited container, whereas older children, particularly 9-year-olds, were able to use landmark orientation to infer correct locations. Keywords: object search, spatial memory, rotational displacements, inferential reasoning, landmark use

The authors examined the relation between children's narrative ability, which has been identified as an important contributor to memory development, and suggestibility. Across 2 studies, a total of 112 preschool-aged children witnessed a staged event and were subsequently questioned suggestively. Results from Study 1 indicated that children's ability to provide a high-quality narrative of the event was related to resistance to suggestive questions, and narrative ability appeared to supersede age as a predictor of such resistance. In Study 2, children's general language and narrative abilities were measured in addition to their ability to produce a high-quality narrative about the target event. These results replicated Study 1's findings that children's ability to produce a high-quality narrative of a previously experienced event predicted resistance to suggestion. However, the quality of children's autobiographical memory narratives predicted shifting from denial to assent. Findings are considered in light of narrative's role in memory development and underlying mechanisms that may explain children's suggestibility. Keywords: narrative, suggestibility, eyewitness testimony, memory development, preschool children

C. J. Brainerd, V. F. Reyna, and S. J. Ceci (2008) reviewed compelling evidence of developmental reversals in false-memory formation (i.e., younger children exhibit lower false-memory rates than do older children and adults) and proposed that this phenomenon depends on the development of gist processing (i.e., the ability to identify and process the semantic theme of word lists, events, etc.). A full understanding of development reversals, however, cannot be achieved without further characterizing the role played by complementary or opposing processes. Suggestions for future research are made from this perspective. Keywords: false memory, development, recollection, recollection rejection

S. Ghetti (2008) and M. L. Howe (2008) presented probative ideas for future research that will deepen scientific understanding of developmental reversals on false memory and establish boundary conditions for these counterintuitive patterns. Ghetti extended the purview of current theoretical principles by formulating hypotheses about how developmental reversals are controlled by the growth of phantom recollection and by the growth of false-memory editing. Some data are available on her hypotheses about phantom recollection, which distinguish phenomenology (vague or vivid) from memory representation (verbatim or gist). Howe introduced alternative theoretical principles that can be traced to the early work of Deese and Underwood. He argued that fuzzy-trace theory is subject to 3 limitations and that his alternative conception makes 3 predictions that contrast with fuzzy-trace theory's predictions. In the current reply, it is shown that the stated limitations do not apply to fuzzy-trace theory, that previously published research runs counter to the 3 predictions, and that the core difference between the 2 approaches is that fuzzy-trace theory is an opponent-processes model whereas the alternative conception is a 1-process model. Keywords: fuzzy-trace theory, children's false memories, phantom recollection

Generic noun phrases ('Birds lay eggs') are important for expressing knowledge about abstract kinds. The authors hypothesized that genericity would be part of gist memory, such that young children would appropriately recall whether sentences were presented as generic or specific. In 4 experiments, preschoolers and college students (N = 280) heard a series of sentences in either generic form (e.g., 'Bears climb trees') or specific form (e.g., 'This bear climbs trees') and were asked to recall the sentences following a 4-min distractor task. Participants in all age groups correctly distinguished between generic and specific noun phrases (NPs) in their recall, even when forgetting the details of the NP form. Memory for predicate content (e.g., 'climb trees') was largely unaffected by genericity, although memory for category labels (e.g., 'bear') was at times better for those who heard sentences with generic wording. Overall, these results suggest that generic form is maintained in long-term memory even for young children and thus may serve as the foundation for constructing knowledge about kinds. Keywords: language, memory, generic nouns, preschool children

Schacter (2001) proposes that there are seven memory malfunctions that occur in everyday life and that affect individuals' ability to recall occurrences in their lives, Given that these sins affect other areas of memory, it is likely that they may affect the ratings that informants provide when they are recalling characteristics of the emotional and behavioral functioning of children and adolescents. This manuscript explores evidence to support this supposition by reviewing relevant studies that fit the description of Schacter's (2001) seven sins (i.e., transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence). Generally, this manuscript suggests that mental health professionals should be aware of the influence that these seven sins of memory may have on ratings that informants provided regarding the functioning of children and adolescents. Keywords Memory * Child functioning * Informant ratings

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00922.x Byline: Mark L Howe (1) Abstract: The role of categorical versus associative relations in 5-, 7-, and 11-year-old children's true and false memories was examined using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm and categorized lists of pictures or words with or without category labels as primes. For true items, recall increased with age and categorized lists were better recalled than DRM lists. For false items, recall increased with age except for picture lists, there were no differences between categorized and DRM lists and no effect of priming, and there were fewer false memories for pictures than words. Like adults, children's false memories are based on associative not thematic relations, whereas their veridical memories depend on both. This new, developmentally invariant dissociation is consistent with knowledge- and resource-based models of memory development. Author Affiliation: (1)Lancaster University Article note: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mark L. Howe, Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, U.K. Electronic mail may be sent to mark.howe@lancaster.ac.uk.

To investigate the influence of different kinds of gesture on children's memory, 60 6- to 7-year-old children participated in an event conducted by the experimenters ('visiting the pirate') and were interviewed to assess memory for the event approximately 2 weeks later. Children were assigned to 1 of 4 conditions; in 3 conditions, gesture was possible (gesture-instructed, gesture-modelled, gesture-allowed) whereas in the fourth condition (gesture-not allowed), children's hands were constrained. The amount of gesture engaged in was limited but was greatest in the gesture-instructed condition. Children in the gesture-instructed condition, who were asked to gesture during the interview, recalled more than did those in the other conditions. Further, relative to children in the gesture-modelledand gesture-allowed conditions, children in the gesture-instructed condition conveyed significantly more information in gesture that had not also been reported verbally. Although further research is necessary to understand the underlying mechanism, the findings suggest that instructing children to gesture as well as verbally recall an experience has cognitive and communicative benefits. KEY WORDS: children; event memory; instructed gesture; spontaneous gesture.

Two experiments investigated the impact of the relationship between processing and storage stimuli on the working memory span task performance of children aged 7 and 9 years of age. In Experiment 1, two types of span task were administered (sentence span and operation span), and participants were required to recall either the products of the processing task (sentence-final word, arithmetic total) or a word or digit unrelated to the processing task. Experiment 2 contrasted sentence span and operation span combined with storage of either words or digits, in tasks in which the item to be remembered was not a direct product of the processing task in either condition. In both experiments, memory span was significantly greater when the items to be recalled belonged to a different stimulus category from the material that was processed, so that in sentence span tasks, number recall was superior to word recall, and in operation span tasks, word recall was superior to number recall. Explanations of these findings in terms of similarity-based interference and response competition in working memory are discussed.

The relations between children's suggestibility and their memory of a silent personal experience are examined and whether the interviewer demeanor moderated these relations is determined. The results provide new insight into individual differences in children's memory and suggestibility and indicate that individual differences may interact with sociocontextual characteristics to affect children's memory for personal experiences.

This study examined priming and false memories with children on a word fragment completion task using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Forty-five 4th- and 5th-grade children were shown lists of words and instructed to fill in fragments with the first word that came to mind (implicit instructions) or with the words that were presented during study (explicit instructions). Reliable priming to critical lure words was found under implicit retrieval instructions, and false memory to critical lure words was found under explicit retrieval instructions. However, priming under implicit retrieval instructions did not depend on whether the critical lure word was in the study list. In addition, greater false memory was observed under explicit test instructions. The results replicate and extend research on DRM false memory illusion with children to include implicit retrieval and word fragment completion. Explanations of false memory including gist failure (Brainerd, Reyna, & Forrest, 2002) and implicit associative response (Underwood, 1965) are considered.

Three experiments that examined reminiscence and hypermnesia in 5- and 6-year-olds' memory for an event across repeated interviews that occurred either immediately afterward or after a 6-month delay are illustrated. Reminiscence, that is, recall of new information, was obtained in all experiments, although the number of items recalled were fewer after a delay, and hypermnesia, that is, increasing total recall over repeated recall attempts, was obtained only when interviews occurred immediately and 24 h after the event.

Two experiments investigated the impact of selective postevent questioning on children's memory for nonreviewed materials. The results show that when children are asked to review some items and not others, memory for nonreviewed materials is impaired in free recall, but not with specific cueing.

Studies of category-specific disorders have suggested that categories of living and non-living things vary in the properties that are most salient to recognition. Studies of the object features generated by normal adults have also revealed different patterns of responses to different categories. These adult patterns are likely to originate in childhood, but there are few reports of children's verbal conceptions of objects, and none at present of objects from different categories. This paper investigates the development of object conceptions, in a large group of children, aged 3 years 7 months to 11 years 6 months, in response to 'What is a --?' questions directed to 72 objects, selected from two categories of living things (animals and fruit/vegetables) and two categories of artifacts (implements and vehicles). Proportions of perceptual-to-functional features provided by the children to living and non-living things varied with the range of features defined as functions, just as studies of adults have found. Apart from the distribution of superordinate responses, which were significantly more salient to living than to non-living categories, no other property separated the two categories. Only the category of implements could be distinguished from the other categories on the basis of the features generated. It is argued that the perceptual-functional theory of category-specific disorders receives little support from this study, but that in general the distribution of features generated by young children is similar to that produced by normal adults., Numerous studies of adults with semantic memory impairments have reported difficulties with naming and defining objects belonging to particular categories of objects. Although it is possible that many of these [...]

Three experiments with a total of 120 children between 4 and 9 years of age revealed systematic errors in the recall of deictic terms from a narrative. In some cases, the terms were inconsistent with the perspective of a protagonist. The errors occurred in all age groups and were at the same level whether the protagonist was 'good' or 'bad' but were less common in a narrative that did not include a protagonist. The pattern of errors suggests that children adopted a perspective within the narrative. Moreover, it seems that whereas the form of the narrative is sufficient to provoke a shift in perspective, children might find it even easier to adopt a perspective when the narrative content is about a protagonist. It thus seems that the form and the content of the narrative (that it is about a person) can combine to give a strong cue to perspective.

This study adds to the growing literature linking children's experiences in the environment to individual differences in their developing skills in attention, memory, and planning. The authors asked about the extent to which stimulating and sensitive care in the family and in the child-care or school environments would predict these cognitive outcomes. The authors also questioned the primacy of experiences in the first 3 years of life. Data from a sample of 700 first graders whose experiences in the home and in child care or school were evaluated since early infancy revealed that the cumulative quality of the child-rearing environment was related to attention and memory but not to planning and that the quality of the family environment was more strongly associated with outcomes than was the quality of child care and of school. The quality of both children's early (6 through 36 months) and later (54 months and first grade) environments predicted performance on the attention and memory tasks.

Boundary extension is the tendency to remember more of a scene than was actually shown. The dominant interpretation of this memory illusion is that it originates from schemata that people construct when viewing a scene. Evidence of boundary extension has been obtained primarily with adult participants who remember neutral pictures. The current study addressed the developmental stability of this phenomenon. Therefore, we investigated whether children aged 10-12 years display boundary extension for neutral pictures. Moreover, we examined emotional scene memory. Eighty-seven children drew pictures from memory after they had seen either neutral or emotional pictures. Both their neutral and emotional drawings revealed boundary extension. Apparently, the schema construction that underlies boundary extension is a robust and ubiquitous process.

Two experiments compared the effectiveness of three types of elaboration on incidental and intentional memory for a story: self-generated, self-choice, and experimenter-provided elaboration. In Exp. 1, using the incidental memory paradigm, second graders listened to a fantastic story and then, in the self-generated condition, answered a 'why' question about a particular topic in the story. In the self-choice condition, they chose one of the alternative answers to the question and in the experimenter-provided condition, judged the appropriateness of each of two provided answers. This was followed by free-recall and cued-recall tests. Subjects were categorized into two groups, good and poor academic achievers in terms of academic scores in four subject matter areas. For good academic achievers, self-choice elaboration led to a better cued recall than the other two elaboration types. The cued-recall performance of poor achievers was not different with the three conditions. In Exp. 2, using the intentional memory paradigm, the subjects intended to learn a different story and then performed the same procedure as Exp. 1. For poor achievers, self-choice elaboration led to a worse free recall than the other elaboration types, but the free recall of good achievers was not significantly different for the three types of elaboration. The results were interpreted as showing that the effects of self-choice elaboration on incidental and intentional memory were correlated with subjects' academic performance.

To elucidate age differences in responses to free-recall prompts (i.e., invitations and cued invitations) and focused recognition prompts (i.e., option-posing and suggestive utterances), the authors examined 130 forensic interviews of 4- to 8-year-old alleged victims of sexual abuse. There were age differences in the total number of details elicited as well as in the number of details elicited using each of the different types of prompts, especially invitations. More details were elicited from older than from younger children in response to all types of prompts, but there were no age differences in the proportion of details (about 50%) elicited using invitations. Cued invitations elicited 18% of the total details, and the number of details elicited using cued invitations increased with age. Action-based cues consistently elicited more details than other types of cues.

In the present experiment, age-related changes in verbal and nonverbal memory performance by 2- to 4-year-old children were assessed. All children participated in the same unique event, and their memory of that event was assessed after a 24-hr delay. Overall, children's performance on each memory measure increased as a function of age. Furthermore, children's performance on both the verbal and nonverbal memory tests was related to their language ability; children with more advanced language skills reported more during the verbal interview and exhibited superior nonverbal memory relative to children with less advanced language skills. Finally, children's verbal recall of the event lagged behind both their nonverbal recall and their general verbal skill. It is hypothesized that despite large strides in language acquisition, preschool-age children continue to rely primarily on nonverbal representations of past events. The findings have important implications for the phenomenon of childhood amnesia.

Byline: I. P. Lukashevich (1), R. I. Machinskaya (2), V. M. Shklovskii (3) Abstract: The role of structures of the left and right cerebral hemispheres in formation of speech function and memory was studied on the basis of complex examination of children with developmental speech disorders. On the basis of EEG estimation of the functional state of the brain, children were classified in two groups depending on the side of localization of changes in electrical activity: those with local changes in electrical activity in the left hemisphere (group I) and those with changes in the right hemisphere (group II). The medical history suggested that the observed features of topography of local changes in electrical activity were linked with the character of prenatal and labor complications and their consequences leading to embryo- and ontogenetic disorders in development of different brain regions. Comparison of the results of neuropsychological examination of the two groups showed that different regions of the brain cortex of both the left and right hemispheres are involved in speech formation. However, a specific role of the right hemisphere in formation and actualization of automatic speech series was revealed. It was suggested that the integrity of gnostic functions of the right hemisphere and, primarily, the spatial organization of perception and movements is a necessary factor of development of auditory--speech and nominative memory. Author Affiliation: (1) Institute of Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Bol'shoi Karetnyi per. 19, Moscow, 101447, Russia (2) Institute of Developmental Physiology, Russian Academy of Education, ul. Pogodinskaya 8-2, Moscow, 119869, Russia (3) Centre of Speech Pathology and Neural Rehabilitation, Moscow, Russia Article History: Registration Date: 12/10/2004

Objective To develop and validate a consensus set of retrieval categories for how children remember what they have eaten, and to relate retrieval categories to accuracy of reporting items eaten during school lunch. Design A Delphi technique study was conducted using 10 psychologists. The subject matter consisted of responses transcribed from interviews conducted with 89 randomly selected fourth graders within 90 minutes of eating. Retrieval categories were evaluated for accuracy by comparing students' self-reported lunch intake with observation. Statistical analyses For round 1, a centroid hierarchical cluster analysis was used to identify common sets of rating pairs to propose categories for reaching consensus. For rounds 2 and 3, percent of agreement was calculated. Accuracy was tabulated across meal items and student use by retrieval category. Results After round 3, we found that 23 'near-consensus' categories were used by at least eight raters. Six categories were used 60% of the time, 4 were used 20% of the time, and 5 were used 15% of the time. Less frequently used categories were combined with similar, more frequently used categories for a total of 16 categories. Students used a large variety of retrieval categories when accurately reporting consumption. Of the 16 categories, 12 were used similarly by both accurate and inaccurate students. Where there were differences in accuracy by retrieval category, the more accurate students used 'taste/smell/texture' and 'visual' in deference to 'order items consumed' and 'oral cue still present.' Applications These categories provide insight into the broad range of retrieval categories that children use and provide direction for researchers to design and study specific cues to enhance the accuracy of children's self-reports of diet., Survey researchers are aware that memory for autobiographical information is not dependable, and that inference, which helps to fill in the details that respondents cannot recall, is inexact and often [...]

Six-year-old children were presented with 12 identically labelled locations in room and required to search non-redundantly for the six that contained rewards. On each day they could commit Across-Trial Memory (ATM) errors by visiting non-rewarded locations, or Within-Trial Memory (WTM) errors by revisiting locations previously visited that day. Groups were trained for nine days, eithe walking or pushed in a wheelchair, and with or without freedom of choice. They were then tested, walking with freedom of choice. Performance of the task improved significantly across training days in groups allowed free choice, whether walking or transported, and was superior at test to that of non-choosin groups. Throughout training and testing, the ATM component of performance was superior in groups allowed free choice. WTM was more accurate than would be expected by chance in all subjects at all stages of the experiment, but did not differ between groups. The problem of comparing WTM scores in groups differing in ATM accuracy was discussed. It was concluded that the primary benefit of fre choice in spatial memory tasks is that it promotes accurate environmental segmentation, and that WTM is little affected by training or environmental familiarity., The performance of children on tests requiring an appreciation of spatial relationships improves markedly between age two and six years (Cornell & Heth, 1983), for example when they are required [...]

Height and weight data are often used as indicators of nutritional status or as end points in assessing the effectiveness of nutrition interventions, particularly weight control programs. Researchers frequently rely [...]

The influence of time-based memory tasks on the time monitoring performance and executive functioning of both children and young adults is analyzed.

A study is conducted to examine children's memory recalls and false recognition of inconsistent suggestions.

A study is conducted to examine the impact of question repetition on children's recall sensitivity and eyewitness testimony.

A study is conducted to examine the development of mental arithmetic and memory retrieval in children.

Working memory in mathematical problem solving and reading of children, with reading disabilities is examined.

This study examined how an erroneous rumor circulated among preschoolers can influence their memory. One fourth of the children overheard a rumor from an adult conversation in which it was alleged that an event the children had not experienced themselves had occurred. A second fourth were the classmates of those who overheard the rumor. A third group had no exposure to the rumor. The remaining children actually experienced the event suggested by the rumor. One week later, the children were interviewed in either a neutral or a suggestive manner. Results from a second interview after a 2-week delay revealed that under both interview conditions, children who overheard the rumor, either from the adult conversation or during naturally occurring interactions with classmates, were as likely to report experiencing the rumored but nonexperienced event as were those who actually experienced it. Most reports of the rumored but nonexperienced event were in children's free recall and were accompanied by high levels of fictitious elaboration.