Two remembering phenomenologies, vivid recollection and vague familiarity, have been extensively studied in adults using introspective self-report tasks, such as remember-know. Because such tasks are beyond the capabilities of young children, there is no database on how these phenomenologies first develop and what factors affect them. In experiments with 5- to 14-year-olds, a child-appropriate behavioral methodology (conjoint recognition) was used to measure these phenomenologies. For both true and false memory, there were marked age increases in vivid recollective experiences, coupled with only slight increases in vague familiarity experiences. Thus, there is a vague-to-vivid developmental shift in the mental states that accompany remembering, a finding that is predicted by fuzzy-trace theory's explanation of recollection and familiarity.

Two experiments examined the effect of a cognitive interview on 4- and 8-year-old children's correct recall and subsequent reporting of misinformation. Children viewed an event followed by misinformation that was read or self-generated either before or after a cognitive interview. Children were then given a recognition test under inclusion and exclusion instructions. A cognitive interview elicited more correct details than a control interview. Age-related changes were found such that the 8-year-old children's reports were more complete and they recalled more correct person, action, object, and location details than the 4-year-old children. A cognitive interview given after postevent misinformation reduced children's reporting of misinformation at interview and reduced reporting of self-generated misinformation at test. Process dissociation analyses revealed that recollection increased but familiarity decreased with age.

Do the emotional valence and arousal of events distort children’s memories? Do valence and arousal modulate counterintuitive age increases in false memory? We investigated those questions in children, adolescents, and adults using the Cornell/Cortland Emotion Lists, a word list pool that induces false memories and in which valence and arousal can be manipulated factorially. False memories increased with age for unpresented semantic associates of word lists, and net accuracy (the ratio of true memory to total memory) decreased with age. These surprising developmental trends were more pronounced for negatively-valenced materials than for positively-valenced materials, they were more pronounced for high-arousal materials than for low-arousal materials, and developmental increases in the effects of arousal were small in comparison to developmental increases in the effects of valence. These findings have ramifications for legal applications of false-memory research: Materials that share the emotional hallmark of crimes (events that are negatively valenced and arousing) produced the largest age increases in false memory and the largest age declines in net accuracy.

Two studies examined whether a Cognitive Interview improves older witnesses' recall. Study 1 compared the quality and quantity of older adults' recall when given a typical UK police interview, the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI), or a modified version of the Cognitive Interview (MCI). The MCI was identical to the ECI except that the change perspective technique was omitted. Old-old (75-95-years) adults' recall was less complete and less accurate than that of young-old (60-74-years) adults, which was less complete and accurate than that of young (17-31-years) adults. The ECI and MCI increased the number of correct Person, Action, Object and Surrounding details reported across every age group, without increasing the number of incorrect or confabulated details recalled. In Study 2, it was found that these effects remained when interviews were re-scored using a system that reflected police officers' decisions about the investigative relevance of details.

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