When Baby Maisy came to school: Mothers' interview styles and preschoolers' event memories

Abstract

Abstract

Fifteen 4-5-year-old children experienced a surprise event in their classroom - the visit of their former teacher and her new baby. The same day, children were interviewed about the event by their mothers, who had not been present and were naive to details. Mothers questioned their children in whatever way they wished. Three weeks later, children were interviewed by a researcher who had not been present during the original event and who had no information about the content of the parent-child interviews. Results showed that mothers' conversational style predicted the amount of information children provided during the mother-child interview, which in turn predicted how much accurate information children remembered during the researcher-child interview. The findings suggest that parent-child memory talk affects children's long-term memory reports, even when parents do not share in the event and have no knowledge of its details.

Department

Psychology

Publication Date

1-2000

Journal Title

Cognitive Development

Publisher

Elsevier

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1016/S0885-2014(00)00019-8

Document Type

Article

Rights

© 2000 Elsevier Science Inc.

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