Powell M B, Thomson D M
Department of Psychology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
Child Dev. 1996 Oct;67(5):1988-2004.
Children's memory of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined whereby each occurrence had the same underlying structure but included unpredictable variations in the specific instantiations of items across the series. The event was administered by the children's teachers at the kindergarten or school. The effects of repetition (single vs. repeated event), age (4-5 vs. 6-8-year-olds), retention interval (1 week vs. 6 weeks), and the frequency of specific instantiations of items were examined across 3 question types. Repetition increased the number of items recalled on a level that was common to all occurrences in response to general probes and reduced the likelihood that children would report details that did not occur in the event. However, repetition also reduced the number of correct responses about which instantiation was included in the occurrence and decreased the consistency of responses across repeated questioning. Most errors were intrusions of details from other occurrences; usually references to instantiations of items that had occurred frequently throughout the series. The younger children showed a poorer ability to discriminate between the occurrences than the older children, but age differences were less evident at the longer retention interval. The results are discussed in relation to current theories of memory and children's eyewitness testimony.
研究考察了儿童对重复事件最后一次发生的记忆，其中每次发生都有相同的基本结构，但系列中各项的具体实例存在不可预测的变化。该事件由儿童在幼儿园或学校的老师实施。通过三种问题类型，研究了重复（单次事件与重复事件）、年龄（4至5岁与6至8岁）、保留间隔（1周与6周）以及各项具体实例的频率的影响。重复增加了在针对一般探测的所有发生情况中共同的回忆项目数量，并降低了儿童报告事件中未出现的细节的可能性。然而，重复也减少了关于某次发生中包含哪些实例的正确回答数量，并降低了重复提问时回答的一致性。大多数错误是来自其他发生情况的细节干扰；通常是提及系列中频繁出现的项目实例。年幼儿童区分不同发生情况的能力比年长儿童差，但在较长的保留间隔时年龄差异不太明显。结合当前的记忆理论和儿童目击证人证词对结果进行了讨论。
