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The counterintuitive developmental trend in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) illusion (that false-memory responses increase with age) was investigated in learning-disabled and nondisabled children from the 6- to 14-year-old age range. Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that because there are qualitative differences in how younger versus older children and disabled versus nondisabled children connect meaning information across the words on DRM lists, certain key effects that are observed in adult studies will be absent in young children and in learning-disabled children. Data on 6 such adult effects (list strength, recall inflation, delayed inflation, delayed stability, thematic intrusion, and true-false dissociation) were used to investigate this hypothesis, and the resulting data were consistent with prediction.

Three studies investigated the extent to which kindergartners, second-graders, and undergraduates were susceptible to the Deese/Roediger/McDermott (DRM) illusion, an adult false-memory paradigm. Findings indicated that the DRM illusion was at nearly non-existent levels in young children, and was still below adult levels in adolescence. The low levels of the illusion in young children may be due to failure to comprehend the DRM materials. (JPB)