Autosuggestibility in Memory Development

Abstract

Autosuggestibility is a potentially common source of false memories in children. We studied a form of autosuggestibility in which children′s answers to memory tests were shifted in the direction of their illogical solutions to reasoning problems. In Experiments 1 and 2, illogic-consistent shifts were identified in children′s memories of the numerical inputs on class-inclusion problems. The magnitudes of the shifts declined with age, and they appeared to be due to the intrusion of inappropriate gist on memory probes rather than retroactive interference from illogical reasoning. A model of how gist intrusion causes autosuggestibility was investigated in Experiments 3-5. The model assumes that children retrieve and process inappropriate gist when memory tests supply cues that are inadequate to permit access to verbatim memories.