Emotion and Memory: Children's Long-Term Remembering, Forgetting, and Suggestibility

• Published in: Journal of experimental child psychology 1999-04, Vol.72 (4), p.235-270
• Main Authors: Quas, Jodi A., Goodman, Gail S., Bidrose, Sue, Pipe, Margaret-Ellen, Craw, Susan, Ablin, Deborah S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Affect - physiology; Age Factors; Amnesia; attachment; Attachment Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Child psychology; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; children's memory; Developmental psychology; emotion; Emotional Development; Emotions; eyewitness testimony; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Infantile Amnesia; Long Term Memory; Medicine; Memory; Memory Disorders - etiology; Parent Child Relationship; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Retention (Psychology) - physiology; Stress, Psychological - psychology; Suggestibility; Suggestion; Surveys and Questionnaires; Testimony; Time Factors (Memory)
• ISSN: 0022-0965; 1096-0457
• DOI: 10.1006/jecp.1999.2491

Children's memories for an experienced and a never-experienced medical procedure were examined. Three- to 13-year-olds were questioned about a voiding cystourethrogram fluoroscopy (VCUG) they endured between 2 and 6 years of age. Children 4 years or older at VCUG were more accurate than children younger than 4 at VCUG. Longer delays were associated with providing fewer units of correct information but not with more inaccuracies. Parental avoidant attachment style was related to increased errors in children's VCUG memory. Children were more likely to assent to the false medical procedure when it was alluded to briefly than when described in detail, and false assents were related to fewer “do-not-know” responses about the VCUG. Results have implications for childhood amnesia, stress and memory, individual differences, and eyewitness testimony.