School of Psychology, University of Leicester, UK.
Dev Psychol. 2011 Mar;47(2):442-9. doi: 10.1037/a0021058.
A developmental reversal in false memory is the counterintuitive phenomenon of higher levels of false memory in older children, adolescents, and adults than in younger children. The ability of verbatim memory to suppress this age trend in false memory was evaluated using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Seven and 11-year-old children studied DRM lists either in a standard condition (whole words) that normally produces high levels of false memory or in an alternative condition that should enhance verbatim memory (word fragments). Half the children took 1 recognition test, and the other half took 3 recognition tests. In the single-test condition, the typical age difference in false memory was found for the word condition (higher false memory for 11-year-olds than for 7-year-olds), but in the word fragment condition false memory was lower in the older children. In the word condition, false memory increased over successive recognition tests. Our findings are consistent with 2 principles of fuzzy-trace theory's explanation of false memories: (a) reliance on verbatim rather than gist memory causes such errors to decline with age, and (b) repeated testing increases reliance on gist memory in older children and adults who spontaneously connect meaning across events.
发展性错误记忆的逆转是一种反直觉的现象，即年龄较大的儿童、青少年和成年人比年龄较小的儿童产生更高水平的错误记忆。使用 Deese-Roediger-McDermott（DRM）范式评估逐字记忆抑制这种错误记忆年龄趋势的能力。7 岁和 11 岁的儿童在标准条件（完整单词）下学习 DRM 列表，该条件通常会产生高水平的错误记忆，或者在替代条件下学习，该条件应增强逐字记忆（单词碎片）。一半的孩子接受了 1 次识别测试，另一半孩子接受了 3 次识别测试。在单次测试条件下，发现了单词条件下错误记忆的典型年龄差异（11 岁儿童的错误记忆高于 7 岁儿童），但在单词碎片条件下，年龄较大的儿童的错误记忆较低。在单词条件下，错误记忆随着连续的识别测试而增加。我们的发现与模糊痕迹理论对错误记忆的解释的 2 个原则一致：（a）依赖逐字记忆而不是要点记忆会导致此类错误随年龄的增长而减少，以及（b）重复测试会增加年龄较大的儿童和成年人对要点记忆的依赖，他们会自发地将意义连接到事件中。
