When Young Children are Better Eyewitnesses than Older Children and Adults: Developmental Reversals in Susceptibility to Misinformation

Here, we show that the opposite can be engendered: In two experiments, suggestion-induced false memories increase with age when participants focus on the underlying meaning of an event. Using an adapted misinformation procedure, we presented participants (children and adults) with a video of a bank robbery containing associatively-related details.

They then received misinformation preserving the meaning of the event either in an eyewitness account or through being interviewed. One day later, participants received a recognition test. Using this novel approach, we found that older children (Experiment 2) and adults (Experiment 1) were the most prone to the formation of false memories.