Effects of Temporally Varied Biased and Unbiased Story Summaries on the Suggestibility of Preschoolers

Abstract

Preschool children's resistance to the influence of postevent misinformation was investigated. Ninety-one preschoolers (3 years 6 months to 5 years 6 months old) were read a story about a boy's birthday party. One week later, they received 1 of 3 summary conditions containing general information (unbiased, biased, or no summary). Two weeks after the original story, they were presented with either a biased summary or no summary. The children's suggestibility was assessed by a recognition test that provided a choice between the original and postevent misinformation. Those who received an unbiased summary showed higher recognition rates than those who received a biased summary, regardless of whether the biased information had been given at the 1- or 2-week interval. Although an unbiased summary followed by biased information did not produce greater recognition rates that were found in the control group, participants who received unbiased summaries did perform above chance, suggesting that even a vague summary may help to reactivate specific memory traces, particularly when information is bimodally presented.