Santirocchi Alessandro, Spataro Pietro, Pesola Maria Chiara, Naser Aicia, Cestari Vincenzo, Rossi-Arnaud Clelia
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185, Rome, Italy.
Faculty of Society and Communication Sciences, University of the System of the Italian Chambers of Commerce, Rome, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2025 Mar 18;15(1):9381. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-92905-w.
Individual difference in children's interrogative suggestibility should be theoretically associated with working memory and response inhibition skills. Yet, previous studies have reached mixed conclusions regarding the role of cognitive factors. In the present research, we re-examined this question in a sample of 203 children attending primary or middle school. They were administered the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale, a verbal span task (to measure the capacity of the phonological loop), and two inhibitory tasks (the Stroop Color and Word Test and the Global-Local Task). In line with our predictions, children having higher span scores were less suggestible than children having lower span scores (although the effect did not survive after controlling for class differences). On the other hand, the associations with inhibitory measures were null or even in contrast with our expectations, showing lower suggestibility indices in children who were less efficient in inhibiting the elaboration of the semantic meaning of words in the Stroop test. We conclude that individual differences in working memory and inhibitory skills have a limited impact on interrogative suggestibility, at least during middle childhood.
儿童疑问暗示性的个体差异在理论上应与工作记忆和反应抑制技能相关。然而，先前的研究在认知因素的作用方面得出了不一致的结论。在本研究中，我们在203名小学生或初中生样本中重新审视了这个问题。他们接受了古德琼森暗示性量表、一项言语广度任务（用于测量语音回路的容量）以及两项抑制任务（斯特鲁普颜色和文字测验以及全局-局部任务）。与我们的预测一致，言语广度得分较高的儿童比得分较低的儿童更不易受暗示（尽管在控制班级差异后该效应不再显著）。另一方面，与抑制测量指标的关联为零，甚至与我们的预期相反，即在斯特鲁普测验中抑制词语语义加工效率较低的儿童表现出更低的暗示性指标。我们得出结论，工作记忆和抑制技能的个体差异对疑问暗示性的影响有限，至少在童年中期是这样。
