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Third-party-funded project

Title:
Children's Eyewitness Memory and Suggestibility

Project management at the University of Würzburg:

• Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider

Participating scientists:

• Dr. Claudia M. Roebers

Abstract:
The project aims to shed light on the question whether, from which age on and under which circumstances children gave give a reliable report of an observed or experienced event and answer specific, in some instances leading questions correctly. Beside the documentation of age related differences in those competencies, the project focuses on underlying factors that are known from basic research on memory development and examines whether such factors also mediate age related improvements in event memory and specific questioning. Thereby, the ability to give a complete and correct free narrative of the to-be-remembered event without any specific prompting is given particular attention. Additionally, the ability to screen out incorrect answers under detailed questioning and respond with "I don't know" instead is explored under a developmental perspective.

Key words:
    Eyewitness Memory
    Suggestibility

Projekt period: from 09.1996 to 08.2003

Funding institution:
DFG ,Granting date: 01.01.1999

Publications:

• Roebers, C. M.. (2002). ). Confidence judgments in children’s and adults‘ event recall and suggestibility. Developmental Psychology, (scientific article)
• Roebers, C. M. & Fernandez, O. (2002). The effects of accuracy motivation on children’s and adults’ event recall, suggestibility, and their answers to unanswerable questions. . Journal of Cognition and Development., (scientific article)
• Roebers, C. M. & Schneider, W. (2002). Stability and consistency of children's event recall. Cognitive Development., (scientific article)
• Roebers, C. M., Bjorklund, D. F., Schneider, W. & Cassel, W. S.. (2002). Differences and similarities in event recall and suggestibility between children and adults in Germany and the United States.. Experimental Psychology, (scientific article)
• Roebers, C. M. & Elischberger, H. B. (2002). Autobiographische Erinnerung bei jungen Kindern: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen bei der Verbesserung ihrer freien Berichte. . Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, (scientific article)
• Elischberger, H. B. & Roebers, C. M.. (2001). Improving young children's free narratives about an observed event: the effects of nonspecific verbal prompts. . International Journal of Behavioural Development, (scientific article)
• Roebers, C. M., Moga, N. & Schneider, W.. (2001). ). The role of accuracy motivation on children's and adults event recall. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, (scientific article)
• Roebers, C. M. & Schneider, W. (2001). ). Individual differences in children's eyewitness recall: The effect of intelligence and shyness. Applied Developmental Science, (scientific article)
• Roebers, C. M. & Schneider, W. (2001). Memory for an observed event in the presence of prior misinformation: Developmental patterns in free recall and identification accuracy. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, (scientific article)
• Roebers, C. M. & Schneider, W. (2000). The impact of misleading questions on eyewitness memory in children and adults. Applied Cognitive Psychology, (scientific article)

Links:
a more detailes description of the project
more references to related topics, too