Abducted by a UFO: prevalence information affects young children’s false memories for an implausible event Essay

SUMMARYThis vignette examined whether preponderance information promotes pincerrens trumped-up(prenominal) memories for an farfetched impression. Forty-four 78 and forty- cardinal 1112 course old children heard a admittedly narrative virtually their rst school solar twenty-four hour periodlight and a dour narrative most either an improbable result (abducted by a flying saucer) or a plausible event ( roughly choking on a glaze over). Moreover, half of the children in each go over received preponderance information in the form of a wrong paper article date listening to the narratives. Across two interviews, children were asked to writing everything they remembered about the events. In both age bases, plausible and implausible events were equ onlyy samely to give rise to paradoxical memories. Pre valency information increased the number of glowering memories in 78 social class olds, but non in 1112 year olds at discourse 1. Our ndings demonstrate that young c hildren can easily contrive delusive memories of a super implausible event. Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Both recent studies (e.g. Pezdek & Hodge, 1999 rum, Sutherland, & Garry, 2006) and legal cases pay demonstrated that children can develop memories of events that never happened, so-called paradoxical memories (Loftus, 2004). A well- jockeyn legal case is the McMartin Preschool trial in which some(prenominal)teachers were acc utilise of ritually abusing hundreds of children crosswise a 10-year period (Garven, Wood, & Malpass, 2000 Garven, Wood, Malpass, & Shaw, 1998 Schreiber et al., 2006). Some of the children recalled extremely bizarre, implausible events such as ying in helicopters to an isolated farm and watching horses being beaten with baseball bats.The charges against the teachers, however, were eventually dropped videotapes of the investigative interviews channelized that the children were suggestively interrogated and many an a nonher(prenominal)(prenom inal) experts concluded that the childrens memories were almost surely bastard. Controversial cases like the McMartin trial do inspired researchers to examine how children develop chimerical memories of implausible experiences (Pezdek & Hodge, 1999 Strange et al., 2006), yet the precise antece defects of implausible false memories atomic number 18 understood ill-understood. The question we ask here is whether preponderance informationthat is, details about the frequency of a false eventis a potential determinant of childrens implausible false memories. *Correspondence to Henry Otgaar, cogency of Psychology, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands. E-mail henry.otgaarpsychology.unimaas.nlCopyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.H. Otgaar et al.What do we know about the role of preponderance information in the breeding of false memories? Mazzoni, Loftus, and Kirsch (2001) describe a three-step process that explains how false memories are formed. harmonise to this model, three conditions must be satised to create false memories. First, an event has to be considered plausible. Second, the event has to be evaluated as something that genuinely happened. Finally, images and thoughts about the event flip to be mistaken as remembrance details. Consider, now, entirely the rst stage of Mazzoni et al.s model (event plausibleness) and how prevalence information might affect perceived plausibility. Recent experiments have shown that prevalence information enhances the perceived plausibility of implausible events (Hart & Schooler, 2006 Mazzoni et al., 2001 Pezdek,Blandon-Gitlin, Hart, & Schooler, 2006 Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Jimenez, 2006). Mazzoni et al. (2001) asked undergraduates to realise false report articles describing demonic possession. The articles implied, among other things (i.e. a de ledgerion of what happens in a typical possession experience), that possessions were more common than people antecedently thought a nd after reading the articles participants were more likely to believe they had witnessed a demonic possession in the past. Other studies investigating the role of prevalence information in eliciting false beliefs have produced connatural great final results (Hart & Schooler, 2006 Mazzoni et al., 2001 Pezdek et al., 2006 Scoboria et al., 2006).What we do non know, however, is whether prevalence information inuences the development of false memories (stage 3 of Mazzoni et al.s model) and not just false beliefs per se. This is an important issue in the false storehouse literature because several(prenominal) authors have argued that memories and beliefs, although related, are denitely not the same (Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Relyea, 2004 Smeets, Merckelbach, Horselenberg, & Jelicic, 2005). Moreover, the effect of prevalence information has only ever been well-tried on adults beliefs. To date, no playing area has examined whether prevalence information affects the generation of childrens false memories.What do we know about event plausibility in the development of childrens false memories? In short, research has produced kindle but varied results. Early studies showed that children were more likely to create false memories of plausible than implausible events (Pezdek & Hodge, 1999 Pezdek, Finger, & Hodge, 1997), and researchers suggested that it may be dif frenzy to implant false memories of an implausible event (i.e. receiving a rectal enema). In contrast, adept recent study shows that children will wrong recall both plausible and implausible events to a similar extent (Strange et al., 2006).Three different explanations might account for these mixed ndings. First, Strange et al. presented children with a doctored photograph of the false event whereas Pezdek and colleagues used false de mittions. Doctored photographs might be considered an extreme form of evidence -one that is very difcult for children to refute. It is probable, then, that the doctore d photographs skewed the childrens plausibility judgments which in turn caused them to develop false memories for the plausible and implausible event at a similar rate.Second, Strange et al. compared false events that were either plausible or implausible whereas Pezdek and colleagues (1997, 1999) contrasted false events that differed in terms of script fellowship (i.e. description of what typically occurs in an event). Specically, they compared a high script knowledge event (i.e. lost in a shopping mall) with a low script knowledge event (i.e. receiving a rectal enema). However, the exact relation between script knowledge and plausibility is not clear (Scoboria et al., 2004).Third, the two false events used in Strange et al.s and Pezdek et al.s studies differed with respect to valence. Strange et al.s events were positive (i.e. taking a hot air balloon ride and drinking a cup of tea with Prince Charles), whereas Pezdek and colleagues implanted false negative events in Copyright 20 08 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. childrens remembering (i.e. lost in a shopping mall and receiving a rectal enema). Studies have shown that valence affects the development of childrens false memories (Ceci, Loftus, Leichtman, & Bruck, 1994 Howe, 2007). Since plausibility, valence and script knowledge carry outm to play a role in the development of false memories, the false events used in the current study were matched on these factors.To examine whether prevalence information can lead children to develop full-blown false memories of plausible and implausible events, and to examine developmental differences in the development of false memories, we adapted the false narrative procedure (e.g. Garry & Wade, 2005 Loftus & Pickrell, 1995 Pezdek & Hodge, 1999 Pezdek et al., 1997), and exposed some 78 year old children and some 1112 year old children to one real description and one false description of past experiences.Previous studies have shown that these age groups differ developmentally wi th respect to suggestibility and false memory formation (e.g. Ceci, Ross, & Toglia, 1987). The true description describe the childs rst day at school. The false description was either plausible and described almost choking on a candy, or implausible and described being abducted by a unidentified flying object. Half of the children in each group also received prevalence information in the form of a newspaper article. The article suggested that the objective lens false event was much more common than the children probably thought.Our predictions were straightforward found on the prevalence literature with adults, we predicted that children who heard false prevalence information would be more likely to report false memories than children without false prevalence information. With respect to the role of event plausibility, two predictions can be formulated. Based on studies by Pezdek and colleagues (1997, 1999), we would predict that regardless of prevalence information, plausible ev ents would elicit more false memories than implausible events. However, based on a recent study by Strange et al. (2006), we would expect that plausible and implausible events are equally likely to elicit false memories. Finally, because younger children are more suggestible than older children (for an overview analyse Bruck & Ceci, 1999), we expected that younger children would be more likely to develop false memories than older children.METHODParticipantsThe study involved 91 primary school children (48 girls) from two different age groups (n 44, 78 year olds, M 7.68 years, SD 0.52 n 47, 1112 year olds, M 11.64 years, SD 0.53). Children participated after parents and teachers had given informed consent. any children received a small gift in return for their participation. The study was approved by the standing(a) ethical committee of the Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht University.MaterialsTrue narrativesTrue narratives described childrens rst day at school. This event wa s chosen because it was a unique event that had happened to all children at age 4. Childrens parents were contacted by squall to obtain the following individualised details about each childs rst school day the family members or friends who escorted the child to school, and the teachers and schools name. These details were incorporated in the true narratives. Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.An example of a true narrative wasYour serve told me that when you were 4 years old, you went for the rst condemnation to the elementary school. The name of the elementary school was Springer and it was located in Maastricht. The name of your teacher was Tom. Your buzz off took you to school.False narrativesFalse events were selected from a pilot study. In that study, 49 children (M 8.02 years, SD 1.20, range 6101) rated the plausibility and valence of 29 events on child-friendly 7-point Smiley scales (anchors implausible/negative, plausible/positive) with bigger smiley faces refe rring to more plausible/more positive events. Specically, children had to indicate how likely the events were to happen to them (e.g. How likely is it that you almost choke on a candy? i.e. personal plausibility Scoboria et al., 2004) and how pleasant the events were for them (e.g., How pleasant is it that you almost choke on a candy?).To ensure that they understood the events, all children rated two practice items. Furthermore, 19 children (M 8.74 years, SD 1.05, range 710) were instructed to report everything they knew about each event and the enumerate number of idea units served as our measure of childrens script-knowledge about the events (Scoboria et al., 2004). Based on their ratings, we selected two events, almost clotted on a candy and abducted by a UFO.These events were equal in terms of valence (Mchoking 1.65, SDchoking 1.48, MUFO 1.94, SDUFO 1.98, t(47) 1, n.s.) and script knowledge (Mchoking 1.11, SDchoking 0.99, MUFO 0.74, SDUFO 1.05, t(18) 1.20, n.s.), bu t differed in terms of plausibility with mean plausibility ratings being high for the choking event (M 5.86, SD 2.02) than for the UFO event (M 1.63, SD 1.75, t(47) 10.07, p .001). Age did not correlate with plausibility, valence and script knowledge for the two events ( ps .05). Childrens parents conrmed that their child had never experienced the false events. The false narratives wereAlmost choked on a candy Your mother told me that you were at a birthday society when you were 4 years old. At this party you received a bag of candies. When you were at home again, you were allowed to have one candy. Your mother saw that you turned blue and she panicked. Then she hit you on the back and the candy came out. Abducted by a UFO Your mother told me that when you were 4 years old, you were abducted by a UFO. This happened when you were alone outside. You mother was inside the house. Then she suddenly saw through the window that a UFO took you. False newspaper articlesFor the true and false events a newspaper article was fabricated describing that the event took place quite oft durations when participants were age 4. These false newspaper articles were similar in appearance to a local newspaper. Moreover, to personalize the newspaper articles, we included the childrens hometown in the articles. The newspaper articles were 1Because the age range of our pilot sample did not completely overlap with the age groups of our study, we conducted a 2 (pilot group younger vs. older children) 2 (event UFO vs. choking) ANOVA with the latter factor being a within subject factor to examine the effect of age on plausibility judgments. No signicant fundamental interaction emerged ( p .05) indicating that age did not have an impact on the plausibility ratings of our two events. Therefore, the plausibility ratings of our pilot sample can be extend to the older group of our study were randomly assigned to the plausible or implausible event and to the prevalence or no prevalen ce information condition. Each child was interviewed individually twice over seven days.All interviews were audio taped and transcribed. During the interviews, one true narrative and one false narrative were read aloud, with the latter always being presented in the second position. The procedure of the interviews was similar to that used by Wade, Garry, Read, and Lindsay (2002). At the start of wonder 1, children were told that we were interested in their memories for events that had happened when they were 4 years old. Children were instructed to report everything they remembered about the events.In the prevalence information condition, they were told that to help them remember the events they would be volunteerd with a newspaper article. Subsequently, the interviewer read out the article to the child. Children who did not describe details of the target event were told that many people cant recall certain events because they havent thought about them for such a long time. Please concentrate and effort again. If they still did not recall any details, the interviewer made use of context reinstatement and guided imagery.The usage of these retrieval techniques was to take the children mentally back to the scene of the event. Specically, children were told to close their eyes and they were asked to think about their feelings, who was with them, and about the time of the year. After this, children were asked again to recall any details about the event. If they still did not come up with details, the next narrative was presented or the interview was stopped. At the end of Interview 1, children were asked to think about the events every day until the next interview and they were instructed not to talk with others about the events. Parents were asked not to discuss these events with their children. Interview 2 was similar to Interview 1. At the end of Interview 2, they were debriefed using ethical guidelines for false memory research with children (Goodman, Quas, & Redlich, 1998).RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONAn extensive number of children were extremely surprised during the debrieng when they were told that the false event did not happen to them. For example, one 8-year old child responded It really did happen where another one said I really can remember seeing the UFO. After the debrieng, 39% (n 13) of the children remained absolutely condent that they experienced the false events. We debriefed these children until they understood the events were false. Together, these ndings suggest that the false memories in this study were not the result of children falsely assenting or trying to please the interviewer. True eventsTrue memories were categorize as either remembered or not remembered. To be categorized as remembered, children had to report at least two of the three personal details correctly. Childrens true recall was near ceiling. They remembered 88 (97%) events at Interview 1 and 89 (98%) events during Interview 2, x2(1) .07, n.s. False eve ntsFor the false events, two independent judges classied each memory report as no false memory, images but not memories or false memory according to criteria used by Lindsay, Hagen, Read, Wade, and Garry (2004). If a child attempted to recall the false event, but did Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 23 115125 (2009)DOI 10.1002/acpPrevalence information, plausibility, and childrens false memories not have any memory of the event or did not report any details that were beyond the false description, the report was categorized as no false memory. A report was judged as an image when children speculated about details and described images related to the false events. For example, one child reported I think I almost choked on a candy on the birthday of Mauk. I am not sure. It was not a pleasant feeling. To be classied as a false memory, children had to indicate that they remembered the event and provide details beyond those mentioned in the narrative, but relat ed to the narrative.To give an example of a detail, one child express that he remembered being taken to the UFO through a blue beam of light. If children stated that they thought the event and/or certain details could have happened, then this was not scored as a false memory. Furthermore, to minimize the effect of demand characteristics, direct responses to interviewer prompts were not classied as a false memory. The following dialogue from Interview 2 illustrates a childs false memory of the UFO abduction.Child I saw cameras and ashes and some people in the UFO. InterviewerHow many people did you see?Child Approximately nine or ten.Interviewer What kind of people?Child People like me, children.Interviewer What else did you see?Child I saw some people and also some blue/ gullible puppets were passing. Inter-rater agreement for classication of the memory reports was high k 0.92 for Interview 1 and k 0.94 for Interview 2.Collapsing across the conditions, at Interview 1, 33% (n 30) of the children developed a false memory. Thirty per cent (n 9) of these children assented to the false events immediately, that is foregoing to guided imagery and context reinstatement. Thirty-six per cent of the children (n 33), with 67% (n 20) immediately assenting, remembered the false events at Interview 2, x2(1) 26.61, p .001, Cramers V 0.54. Some of the children who rejected the false events at Interview 2 indicated, disdain the explicit instruction at Interview 1, that they had discussed the false events with their parents. The increase in false memories over time is in line with previous studies with adults and children (e.g.Lindsay et al., 2004 Strange et al., 2006 Wade et al., 2002). Furthermore, 10% (n 9) of the children were classied as having an image of the false events at Interview 1. At Interview 2, this percentage decreased to 7% (n 6), x2(1) 58.53, p .001, Cramers V 0.80. Recall that the primary question in this study was whether prevalence informati on boosts the likelihood of plausible and implausible false memories. Table 1 shows the percentage and number of children who reported false memories as a be given of interview and condition.To examine the role of age, event type, and prevalence information in the development of false memories, we conducted a logistic regression analysis with the dependent variable being false memory (0 no false memory/images, 1 false memory). In this analysis, we only focused on genuine false memories and did not collapse across false memories and images. Although non-parametric methods, such as logistic regression, often lack the statistical author to detect interactions (Sawilowsky, 1990), there are four important points to note about these data. First, the only signicant interaction found was an Age Prevalence information interactionat Interview 1. Prevalence information raise the development of 78 year old childrens false memories but not 1112 year old childrens false memories, and this e ffect occurred at Interview 1 (B 2.16, SE 0.96, Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.