Dividing Attention Lowers Children's but Increases Adults' False Memories

H. Otgaar*, M. Peters, M.L. Howe

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The present study examined the impact of divided attention on children's and adults' neutral and negative true and false memories in a standard Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm. Children (7- and 11-year-olds; n = 126) and adults (n = 52) received 5 neutral and 5 negative Deese/Roediger-McDermott word lists; half of each group also received a divided attention task. The results showed that divided attention affected children's and adults' false memory levels differently but did not alter true memory differently. Our results revealed a developmental shift in that divided attention lowered children's false memory rates but increased adults' false memory rates, regardless of the nature of the material (i.e., neutral or negative). Our study indicates that manipulations that target conscious processing (e.g., divided attention) result in marked qualitative and quantitative differences between children's and adults' false memories but not true memories.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)204-210
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Experimental Psychology-Learning Memory and Cognition
Volume38
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2012

Keywords

  • false memories
  • development
  • divided attention
  • memory
  • RECALL
  • RECOGNITION
  • WORDS
  • TRUE
  • CONCRETENESS
  • ACTIVATION
  • IMMEDIATE
  • ILLUSIONS

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