Children's script based inferences

Cognitive Development 16 (2002) 871–887

Children’s script-based inferences Implications for eyewitness testimony Alicia Erskine, Roslyn Markham∗ , Pauline Howie Department of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, NSW, Australia Received 1 December 2000; received in revised form 1 September 2001; accepted 1 October 2001

Abstract Sixty 5–6-year-old children and sixty 9–10-year-old children were shown one of two slide sequences depicting a visit to McDonalds. In one sequence, three script-central details were omitted and in the other, three script-peripheral details were omitted. Either immediately or 1 week later, children’s memory for the slides was tested. Children generated few inferences about any type of omitted information during free recall. As predicted, in response to specific questions, children were more likely to generate incorrect script-consistent inferences when central information had been omitted in the slides than when peripheral information had been omitted. The younger children made more incorrect inferences about the presence of omitted central information than did the older children, both immediately and after a 1-week delay, with more errors in both age groups at the longer delay. There were no effects of age or delay for omitted peripheral information. Children’s self-rated confidence in their responses did not prove to be a good indicator of their accuracy. In fact, they frequently expressed a high level of confidence in their erroneous inferences about the presence of central information they had not seen. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Inferences; Implications; Testimony

1. Introduction A recurring question in the debate about children’s capabilities when reporting events is whether they are able to reliably differentiate event details that really ∗

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61-2-9351-2873; fax: +61-2-9351-2603. E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Markham).

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happened from those that did not (Bruck & Ceci, 1999). One factor that may interfere with correct reporting of witnessed events may be the tendency to draw script-based inferences about what happened and, therefore, to confuse memory for specific details of events with what is typically the case. Both ‘schema’ and ‘script’ concepts have had a long history in theories of cognition and memory (e.g., Bartlett, 1932; Farrar & Boyer-Pennington, 1999; Schank & Abelson, 1977), although there has been debate about the meaning of these theoretical constructs (see Graesser & Nakamura, 1982). A schema may be defined as a “generic knowledge structure . . . that provides a knowledge base that guides the comprehender’s interpretation of explicitly stated information, generation of inferences, and expectations” about what happens in a variety of situations (Graesser, Woll, Kowalski, & Smith, 1980, p. 504). A script may be defined as a specialised type of schema that corresponds to routine, everyday events, such as eating at a restaurant or going to the doctor. When scripts are activated they can facilitate the organisation and comprehension of event-based situations (Abelson, 1981). For instance, children often utilise their scripted knowledge as an interpretative guide, enabling them to predict what should happen in a given situation, such as a birthday party (Nelson, 1986). However, this expectancy-guided knowledge can bias children to report that something that usually happens actually occurred, even when it did not (Ceci & Bruck, 1993). For example, when children have a well-established script resulting from repeated experience with an event, they may confuse memory of a specific event with memory of related episodes, especially when the events are very similar (e.g., Powell & Thompson, 1996). Although there have been numerous studies of the development of the ability to draw different types of inferences (e.g., Cain & Oakhill, 1998; Paris & Carter, 1973), there have been relatively few investigations of how children use their scripts during inference making. This is in spite of the considerable evidence that, as early as 3 years of age, children draw on simple scripts when comprehending events (e.g., Hudson, Fivush, & Kuebli, 1992; Nelson, 1986). Hudson and Slackman (1990) reported that preschool and first-grade children were better able to generate inferences drawing on their script-based knowledge than to draw logical inferences. That is, when children were specifically asked why certain events took place in a story that had been read to them, they could correctly extrapolate from what was explicitly stated in the story, using their scripts as a basis for their inferences. This study illustrates the fact that scripts can sometimes facilitate correct inference making. However, there are also occasions when children may use their scripts to generate inferences when it is inappropriate to do so, as in eyewitness situations. Furthermore, incorrect inferences have been shown to occur when children have read or listened to a script-based story, such as “what happens when you go to school.” They may later experience difficulty distinguishing ‘typical’ script information referred to in the story from ‘typical’ script information that was not referred to in the original story, and often wrongly indicate that typical script information was included in the story when it was not (e.g., Adams & Worden, 1986; Davidson & Hoe, 1993; Hudson, 1988; Hudson & Nelson, 1983). Most of

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these studies have failed to find developmental differences, but this may partly reflect the fact that they tend not to include children over 7 years of age. The developmental literature on script-based inference making has focused almost exclusively on prose comprehension. One should be cautious in extrapolating findings from such studies to inferences made on the basis of visually experienced scenes and events. Adult studies using visual material have reported that information central to an activated script is highly likely to be erroneously inferred as having been seen. By contrast, omitted information that is more peripheral is less likely to be erroneously reported as seen, as it is weakly related to the activated script (e.g., Greenberg, Westcott, & Bailey, 1998). It is important to determine whether children of various ages will generate inferences beyond what they have actually seen and erroneously infer that missing script-consistent information was present. Such research has not been reported to date, although research findings in this area could have considerable practical implications. For example, children who are questioned in a legal setting are likely to be asked about both central features (e.g., typical actions) and peripheral details (e.g., variable details) of witnessed events. It is also likely that questions will be asked about actions or details that are plausible but that did not occur, because the questioner does not know what happened and may have erroneous preconceptions. Studies investigating children’s memory for central versus peripheral details of events have tended to focus on the effects of misinformation. These studies attempt to implant new memories by providing misleading information pertaining to previously seen target information (e.g., Lee & Bussey, 1999; Marche & Howe, 1995). Adult studies have found that it is more difficult to mislead participants about central (salient) information they have seen than about peripheral information they have seen (e.g., Heath & Erickson, 1998; Wright & Stroud, 1998). It is interesting that the central/peripheral difference is in the opposite direction when no misleading information is provided but participants are simply asked whether script-central or script-peripheral information was present, when it was not (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1998); adults are less likely to agree that an absent peripheral detail was present than an absent central detail. A detail which may be highly central and salient to a specific event, for example, a serious accident at McDonalds, may not be relevant to the generic script for McDonalds. In the present study, the focus is on centrality in relation to generic scripts. In this context, central events have been defined as ‘vital for the fulfilment of the script action’ (Galambos & Rips, 1982), or ‘central, or essential, plot information’ (Collins, Wellman, Keniston, & Westby, 1978; Heuer & Reisberg, 1990). This contrasts with definitions of centrality in terms of salience, e.g., visually central features (Bar & Ullman, 1996). Peripheral information has also been variously defined as information that is irrelevant to the scene or event at hand (Wright & Stroud, 1998) or ‘variable actions’ (Walker & Yekovich, 1984), or as some nonsalient feature, e.g., aspects of a room (Goodman, Aman, & Hirshman, 1987). The first definition is adopted in the present study. Since different age groups may differ in what they perceive as central and peripheral information (Johnson & Foley, 1984;

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Nelson, 1993a,b), it is necessary to empirically determine what children of a particular age perceive to be central. One theory which has been proposed to account for developmental differences in script dependency is the schema confirmation–deployment model (Farrar & Boyer- Pennington, 1999; Farrar & Goodman, 1990, 1992; Goodman, 1980). This theory has the potential to explain why younger children, although they are at an earlier stage of script development, may demonstrate a tendency to generate more script-based inferences than older children. The model consists of two main information-processing phases — schema confirmation and schema deployment. Developmental differences are predicted to occur at both phases. In the schema confirmation phase, the child activates the appropriate schema in order to facilitate comprehension of script-based information. Young children should take longer to activate and confirm a schema because of processing limitations and less developed knowledge bases. Processing limitations should also result in younger children being less able than older children to discriminate between the activated generic script and the presented information. Therefore, they are expected to be more script dependent (e.g., Welch-Ross & Schmidt, 1996). Older children progress from the confirmation to the deployment phase more quickly than younger children and are better able to distinguish between typical and atypical script items in memory because of their greater available processing resources and therefore are expected to be less script dependent. Fuzzy-trace theory (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 1998; Marx & Henderson, 1996) also makes predictions about the number of erroneous script-related inferences and implies that this may actually increase with age, since older children are more reliant on gist memory than younger children. Research within this framework tends, however, to focus on inferences made during prose comprehension and has not been applied to children’s inferences about visual information. Time delays are also expected to affect script dependency. Schema models of memory predict that, as memory for the original stimulus material weakens, the retrieval of information becomes increasingly dependent upon the generic schema. In essence, these models assume that over the course of the retention interval, memory “may become more reconstructive and less reproductive” (Brainerd & Ornstein, 1991, p. 15). In accord with the predictions of these models, most studies report that with increasing retention intervals, children and adults show a greater reliance on scripts to guide memory retrieval (List, 1986; Maki, 1989; Mori, Sugimura, & Minami, 1996; Myles-Worsley, Cromer, & Dodd, 1986; Ornstein et al., 1998). However, not all studies obtain this result. For example, Baker-Ward, Gordon, Ornstein, Larus, and Clubb (1993) tested children at up to 6 weeks delay and found virtually no script-based intrusions. The type of memory task used to test children’s memories may lead to differing conclusions. Recognition tests and other forms of specific questioning are frequently used to determine whether expected, but omitted, information will be reported. However, such tests may be more subject to contamination by response bias than is free recall (e.g., Stangor & McMilan, 1992). In the case of young children, because their free recall reports tend to be sparse, specific prompts are frequently

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used (e.g., Davies, 1996; Saywitz, 1995). Therefore, it has been suggested that the optimal method of eliciting information from children is a combination of free recall followed by more focused questions (e.g., King & Yuille, 1987; Walker & Hunt, 1998). Another aspect of script-based inferences that deserves attention is the confidence–accuracy (C–A) relationship. Children may make incorrect script-based inferences but express little confidence in these responses. On the other hand, if they express confidence in these inferences, there may be serious ramifications. There is extensive research (particularly with adults) on the relationship between confidence judgements and memory accuracy in standard eyewitness situations. However, there appears to be a lack of research on the C–A relationship when children are questioned about expected, but omitted, script details. Sykes, Gruneberg, and Turner (1988) examined the strength of the C–A relationship between 8- and 10-year-old children answering questions about an event, and found a significant relationship that was similar for both ages and at two different delay intervals. However, eyewitness identification research suggests that expressed confidence is usually a weak predictor of accuracy (e.g., Fraser Parker & Carranza, 1989; Fraser Parker, Haverfield, & Baker-Thomas, 1986; Leippe, Manion, & Romanczyk, 1991; Sporer, Penrod, Read, & Cutler, 1995) and that participants tend to overestimate their memory accuracy. Therefore, the credence that is often assigned to confident eyewitness reports may be largely unwarranted (e.g., Penrod & Cutler, 1995). An examination of these relationships in children of different ages was thus included in the present study. Children’s script-based inferences were examined in this study by varying the type of information that was omitted from a slide sequence (i.e., script-central versus script-peripheral) and the delay interval between the presentation of the slides and the memory tests (i.e., immediate versus delayed testing). Consistent with script models of memory, it was expected that the tendency of children to rely on scripts to facilitate their memory would become more pronounced after a time delay, as the memory trace for the original stimulus event has had time to weaken (e.g., Bower, Black, & Turner, 1979). Memory was assessed by specific ‘yes/no’ questions as well as free recall, in order to determine whether the questioning method affects script-based inferences. We included two age groups (5–6-year-olds and 9–10-year-olds) in order to provide data on a wider age range than in previous research. Further, the relationship between children’s self-rated confidence and memory accuracy was examined, as well as variables that may modify this relationship, namely, age, delay interval, and script centrality.

2. Method 2.1. Participants Participants were 120 children recruited from State and Catholic primary schools in a large rural town in New South Wales, Australia. There were 60 children aged

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5–6 years, 36 boys and 24 girls, (M (age) = 5 years 8 months, S.D. = 4.5 months) and 60 children aged 9–10 years, 26 boys and 34 girls, (M (age) = 9 years 7 months, S.D. = 4.0 months). 2.2. Materials 2.2.1. Slides Two slide sequences were developed, each made up of 27 slides depicting the events surrounding a family visit to McDonalds. Previous research (e.g., Hudson, 1988; Nelson & Gruendel, 1988) has reported that from about 4 years of age, children have a well-established script about going to McDonalds and this was confirmed for the Australian context in a pilot study. The two slide sequences were the same, except that in Slide Sequence A, three slides were omitted which depicted actions designated as central to what children knew about going to McDonalds. Slide Sequence B included these three slides, but omitted three slides that were designated as peripheral to what children knew about going to McDonalds. Designation of slides as ‘central’ or ‘peripheral’ was based on the pilot study, in which children of the relevant ages were asked to state “what happens when you go to McDonalds.” Central items were based on the three events that children mentioned most consistently (arriving at McDonalds by car; waiting in a line to order the food; and paying for the food). Peripheral items could be regarded as ‘script neutral’ in that they were items not mentioned by any child but were items which could have occurred at McDonalds (spilling a drink; tying a shoelace; making a telephone call at the payphone) and therefore did not violate the script. The central script items that were omitted fell in the first half of the slide sequence, as dictated by the nature of the items found to be central in the pilot study. Several other salient aspects of a visit to McDonalds were included early in the slide sequence in order to ensure that omission of the target central slides would not undermine the coherence of the narrative sequence. The peripheral items were more widely spread throughout the slide sequence. 2.2.2. Memory test The memory test consisted of a free recall memory task followed by 19 specific questions. In the free recall task, children were asked to tell the experimenter everything they could remember about what happened in the slides. For each child, the 19 specific questions consisted of three target questions about the central items omitted from Slide Sequence A, and three about the peripheral items omitted from Slide Sequence B. Thus, for children who had seen sequence A, the central questions asked about details that were not in the slides, and the peripheral questions asked about details that were, while for those who had seen sequence B, the reverse was the case. Following Greenberg et al.’s (1998) procedure, each of the target questions required a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer and followed the format: “Did you see a . . . in the slides?” Interspersed among these were 13 filler questions included to disguise the three target questions, so that children could not guess the intent of

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the study. Ten of these were specific questions of the type “What colour sweater was the girl’s mother wearing?” or yes/no questions of the type “Was the man wearing glasses?” A further three items asked questions about script-inconsistent information (Did you see anybody eating pizza at McDonalds?; Did you see a dog inside McDonalds?; Did you see a man play a guitar in McDonalds?). These questions differed from peripheral questions in that they were implausible in the McDonalds context, whereas the peripheral questions were quite plausible in the McDonalds context. The script-inconsistent questions were included to ensure that children were not simply acquiescing in their answers to questions regardless of their script appropriateness. 2.2.3. Confidence rating scale This consisted of five squares of increasing size drawn on a sheet of paper. The smallest square represented ‘just guessing,’ and the largest square represented ‘really sure.’ 2.3. Procedure The main study consisted of two phases, presentation of the slides to groups of children and individual memory testing. Children were told that they were going to be shown some slides about McDonalds, which they would be questioned about later. They were shown either Slide Sequence A or Slide Sequence B, with each slide shown for 4 s. Children were randomly allocated to one of the two delay conditions: immediate or 1-week, with the constraint that there would be approximately equal numbers of boys and girls in each condition. Children in the ‘immediate’ condition were tested within 90 min of viewing the slides. In the ‘delay’ condition, they were tested 7 days after viewing the slides. Children were first asked to recall everything they could remember about the slides. They were then asked the 19 specific memory questions. After answering each specific question, they were asked to indicate their confidence, using the 5-point scale. Prior to answering the questions, they were given practice at making confidence judgements to ensure that they understood.

3. Results 3.1. Scoring 3.1.1. Specific questions Scoring was based on children’s responses to the questions about the three target items that were absent in the slide sequence they had seen. Since the aim of the study was to test predictions about erroneous script-based errors, each child was scored on the number of incorrect responses to questions about the three omitted target items. Incorrect inferences were assumed to have occurred if the child falsely

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recognised omitted information as having been previously presented when it was not. 3.1.2. Free recall Following the procedure outlined by Baker-Ward, Ornstein, Gordon, Follmer, and Clubb (1995), children’s free recall was scored for units of information. A child could score more than one point for information reported about a particular slide, so that the maximum score that could be achieved was, in theory, greater than 27 (the number of slides). Each unit reported was categorised as either correct or incorrect (errors that were script-based, script-inconsistent, or other incorrect information). Units were classified as script-based errors if the child reported one of the ‘target’ details that they had not seen (e.g., ‘we saw the family waiting in line’). Units were classified as ‘other incorrect’ if the information reported was not contained in the slides but was not ‘target’ information, or if the events presented in the slides were recalled wrongly. Units were classified as script-inconsistent if they were incompatible with the McDonalds script. 3.2. Analysis of target items 3.2.1. Specific questions Means and standard deviations for incorrect responses to target questions in each condition are presented in Table 1. To explore the effects of different types of omitted information on children’s script-based inferences, the number of incorrect responses about central and peripheral omitted details was compared. A significant effect for the centrality of omitted information was found, F (1, 118) = 116.28, P < .001. Children who did not see central information erroneously made more errors about the presence of that information than children who did not see peripheral information. Separate 2 (age)×2 (delay interval) ANOVAs were conducted on the number of incorrect responses to the specific questions for omitted central information and for omitted peripheral information. For omitted central details, there was a significant main effect for age on incorrect responses, F (1, 56) = 16.20, P < .001. As expected, the 5–6-year-old children generated more script-based inferences about omitted central details than the 9–10-year-olds. There was also a significant main

Table 1 Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for the number of incorrect responses to specific questions about target items (i.e., incorrectly stating that the omitted information had been seen) 5–6-year-olds

Central slides omitted (Sequence A) Peripheral slides omitted (Sequence B)

9–10-year-olds

Immediate

Delay

Immediate

Delay

2.80 (1.08) 0.27 (0.59)

2.53 (0.52) 0.47 (0.52)

0.93 (0.70) 0.07 (0.26)

1.73 (0.80) 0.20 (0.41)

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effect of delay, F (1, 56) = 13.71, P < .001. Again, as expected, children who were tested after 1 week generated more script-based inferences than children tested immediately. There was no interaction between age and delay for central details. For omitted peripheral details, age did not significantly affect the number of incorrect responses, P > .05. As expected, a 1-week delay did not increase errors, P > .05, and there was no interaction between age and delay. It was important to check that children were more likely to say they had seen central information when they had actually seen it, compared with incorrectly inferring the presence of this information when it had been omitted. This was found to be the case. There were significantly more correct responses to the three target questions about central information that was seen (M = 2.58, S.D. = 0.70) than incorrect inferences to the three target questions about the presence of this information when it had been omitted (M = 1.75, S.D. = 0.97), t (118) = 5.42, P < .001. 3.3. Analysis of additional items There was a very low rate of acquiescence to script-inconsistent questions. Although young children acquiesced at a significantly higher rate than older children (M = 0.28 and 0.04, respectively), F (1, 112) = 8.85, P < .05, an ANOVA revealed that there was no effect of delay and no effect of slide sequence seen by the child (central versus peripheral details omitted). No interactions were found. Analysis of the 10 filler items revealed a significant effect of age on incorrect responses, F (1, 112) = 21.02, P < .01 (M = 3.70 and 2.57 for younger and older children, respectively) and a significant effect of the slide sequence viewed, F (1, 112) = 6.56, P < .05 (M = 3.45 for central omitted and 2.82 for peripheral omitted). There was no main effect of delay and no interaction effects. 3.3.1. Free recall Consistent with numerous prior studies, in free recall the older children reported significantly more units of correct information (M = 11.47, S.D. = 6.29), than the younger children (M = 6.12, S.D. = 3.67), F (1, 118) = 38.72, P < .01. Correct reporting of target slide details was low, with many children reporting no details of these slides. There was a nonsignificant tendency (P = .08) for more correct reports of the three central details (M = 1.10) than of the three peripheral details (M = 0.65). This interacted significantly with delay, F (1, 112) = 4.76, P < .05. There were similar levels of correct reporting of the central items at both delays, but the peripheral items were reported more frequently immediately than after a delay. Younger children tended (P = .06) to give somewhat fewer facts about the target slides than older children (M = 0.63 and 1.12 for young and old, respectively). Centrality of items reported did not interact with age. Inferences about expected, but omitted, script-central information were rare. Only four children generated any such inferences and these were not confined

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to either age group. No inferences were made about peripheral items that had been omitted. Consequently, no statistical analyses of inferences in the free recall data were conducted. These results provide no evidence that younger children are more likely than older to falsely intrude omitted script-based information into their free recall, either immediately or after a 1-week delay. Free recall errors about nontarget slide details were rare (M = 0.55), with most children reporting no erroneous information. 3.4. The C–A relationship Correlations were calculated between children’s average self-rated confidence (ranging from 1 to 5) for the three relevant target questions and the number of correct responses to these target questions. Correlations between confidence and accuracy were significant for children aged 5–6 years (r = −.37, P < .01) and 9–10 years (r = −.28, P < .01) when asked about central information that was omitted from the slides. Surprisingly, for both age groups, increased confidence was associated with decreased accuracy. The correlations between confidence and accuracy were not significant for peripheral information. In order to examine the effects of delay, responses to central and peripheral items were combined. For 5–6-year-old children, correlations between confidence and accuracy were significant, both when they were interviewed immediately (r = −.24, P < .05) and after a 1-week delay (r = −.36, P < .01). Again, greater confidence was associated with decreased accuracy. These correlations were not significant for the older children. The relationship between confidence and accuracy was further explored by comparing the confidence ratings of the subset of children (n = 49) who gave correct answers to some target questions about omitted information and incorrect answers to others. There was a statistically significant difference [t (48) = −4.54, P < .001] between confidence ratings to correct and incorrect answers (M = 2.58 for correct answers and 3.67 for incorrect), indicating significantly more confidence in incorrect answers. Children who had actually seen the three central items were more confident in their correct reports about seeing them than children who had not seen them but had inferred their presence (M = 4.53 and 3.76 for ‘seen’ and ‘inferred,’ respectively), t (96) = 3.68, P ≤ .01.

4. Discussion The present study established that, just as children will generate script-based inferences when expected information is missing from a story (e.g., Adams & Worden, 1986; Davidson & Hoe, 1993; Hudson, 1988; Hudson & Nelson, 1983), children will also utilise their scripts to generate inferences about information missing from events presented in a visual format.

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Overall, younger children made more incorrect script-based inferences than older children when they were asked yes/no specific questions about the presence of script-central items they had not seen. This finding supports the developmental predictions arising from the schema confirmation–deployment model (Farrar & Goodman, 1990) but would not appear to support the predictions of fuzzy-trace theory (e.g., Marx & Henderson, 1996). This poorer performance of younger children on central items was present both immediately and after a delay of 1 week. With respect to omitted script-peripheral information, children made very few errors, regardless of how and when their memory was assessed and, as predicted, age did not influence the number of inferences generated about this information. It would appear, therefore, that children are not always easily misled about minor, peripheral details as has sometimes been found using different procedures (e.g., Lee & Bussey, 1999; Marche & Howe, 1995). That is, when children had a well-established set of expectations for what should happen, they often erroneously inferred that they had seen script-central information but rarely script-peripheral information. This is consistent with the findings from the adult literature (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1998). Additional evidence that children were relying on their scripts was often provided spontaneously during memory testing. For example, one 6-year-old boy stated, “I love my McDonalds . . . my mind’s absolutely flooded with McDonalds and what happens when we go there.” Thus, the present results support the proposition that scripts are accessed and used as a basis for inference by children in answering questions. The specific processes underlying such script-based inference generation are not the concern of this study, although this issue has been the focus of extensive debate, particularly in relation to inference generation in adults (e.g., Bower et al., 1979; Graesser & Nakamura, 1982; Markham & Lissner, 1994). It is interesting that young children did not acquiesce more than older children when responding to questions about omitted peripheral details, but did acquiesce somewhat more than older children when responding to questions that were script-inconsistent. However, it is important to note that the rate of acquiescence to script-inconsistent questions was extremely low for all children and was not affected by whether central or peripheral details had been omitted in the slide sequence. These results eliminate an alternative possible explanation for our major finding that young children made more script-central inferences than older children. Clearly, this age difference was not simply due to the fact that the omission of three central items confused the younger children more than the older children, interfering with their ability to encode the narrative in a coherent manner. This conclusion is further supported by the analysis of the filler items. Although these items demonstrated an effect of age (as with the script-inconsistent items), this age difference did not interact with the centrality of the omitted information. In fact, both age groups performed slightly worse on the filler items when they had viewed the slide sequence in which central items had been omitted, suggesting that there was possibly some effect on encoding difficulty for all children under these conditions.

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The results of this study indicated that, compared to the immediate test condition, a 1-week delay between the presentation of the slides and memory test significantly increased the number of script-based inferences generated about omitted central information in both age groups. While the performance of both age groups deteriorated over time, the younger children made significantly more errors than the older children regardless of whether they were tested immediately or after a delay. The obtained effects of delay on script-based inferences is consistent with the expectations of the schema models of memory developed to account for the inferences made by adults. These models predict that as the memory trace weakens over time, people increasingly rely on their scripts to guide memory retrieval, and therefore make an increased number of erroneous script-based inferences. This prediction was confirmed in the present study. Only the omission of central information resulted in errors. When peripheral information was omitted, virtually no errors were made either immediately or after a delay. These findings have potential implications in applied settings. The issue of the effect of delay on children’s inferences is particularly important in forensic contexts, since questioning of children may occur at varying times after the event (e.g., Ceci & Bruck, 1995). However, when compared to the delay interval a typical witness may encounter, the retention intervals in the present study were relatively short. Future research is needed to determine whether the pattern of results we found extends to longer delays. Moreover, application of the results of the present study to legal settings must be made with caution. Children were forewarned about subsequent testing, saw an emotionally neutral scenario, and were questioned in a familiar and nonthreatening context. It will be important to replicate these findings with more ecologically valid stimuli and procedures. These results do suggest, however, that caution should be exercised when relying on the memory of younger children who have a well-developed script for the event they are reporting, especially when they are required to answer specific ‘yes/no’ questions after a delay. When interviewing child witnesses, it may be productive to ascertain what degree of information about the relevant schemata is already possessed by the child, as this background information may alert the interviewer to the possibility that the child’s script-based knowledge might contaminate their reporting of events. In the particular case of children reporting on extended abuse, Bourg et al. (1999) have suggested that abused children may develop a script of what usually happens, e.g., typical locations, activities, and characteristics of the perpetrator. Consequently, it would be particularly important to elicit script knowledge before information regarding specific incidents is sought. In contrast to their answers to specific questions, children were very accurate in their free recall of the slide sequence regardless of delay, age, or nature of slides omitted. Typical of children’s free recall, the amount of correct information they produced was limited, but accurate. There was little indication in the free recall reports of erroneous inferences of any type. Of particular relevance here, script-based inferences about the three central events that were omitted from the slide sequence occurred very rarely in free recall reports. This result is particularly impressive

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given that the three central target items were specifically selected because the vast majority of children spontaneously mentioned this information in the pilot study. This finding would not be predicted by those schema models of memory that assume that schema-based inferences are made during initial encoding and thus copied into episodic memory. This would result in high false alarm rates for omitted but central script information, both to specific questions and in free recall. The use of two different memory tasks, as in this study, may be useful in suggesting the stage at which processing of script-based inferences about a visual event are likely to be made. The different patterns of results on the two memory tasks suggest that script-based inferences were mainly generated during retrieval, rather than during encoding (e.g., Graesser & Nakamura, 1982). It could be argued, however, that the format of our specific questions may have accentuated the differences between the two memory tasks. Asking ‘did you see . . . ’ certain information may have implied that the information was presented, increasing children’s tendency to acquiesce. However, both the questions about script-inconsistent information and omitted peripheral information were presented in this format and, unlike the questions about script-central information, there was almost no evidence for acquiescence in answers to these questions. Further, because free recall reports are very sparse, they may not reflect the extent of memory for encoded information. The extent to which script-based inferences will occur across a range of question formats, particularly in response to more open-ended questions, remains to be established. Surprisingly, and of some concern, there was a tendency for children to be quite confident that they had seen omitted central information when they had merely inferred its presence. A child’s confidence in reports of highly expected information therefore appears to be an unreliable indicator of that memory’s accuracy. This relationship was found for both age groups, although it was somewhat weaker in the older children. This result is, however, consistent with some previous adult studies that have found greater confidence when acquiescing to misleading information, than when correctly rejecting it (e.g., Weingardt, Leonesio, & Loftus, 1994). Further, when we compared a child’s correct and incorrect answers to the target questions about information they had not seen, it was revealed that they were more confident in their incorrect script-based inferences than in their correct responses. This finding highlights the powerful effects that script-based expectations can exert on memory, and supports other findings in the metamemory literature, suggesting that young children often experience difficulty making metamemorial judgements (Cowan, 1997; Howie, 1999; Kreutzer, Leonard, & Flavell, 1975). It is important to note, however, that children who had actually seen the three central target items were more confident in their correct answers than those who had not seen them but incorrectly inferred their presence. In summary, the results of the present study highlight the fact that expectations about what should occur in a situation have the potential to detrimentally affect children’s memory reports when they are specifically questioned about whether or not they saw something. Expectations also affect the C–A relationship in children. Children’s script-based inferences were clearly influenced by their developmental

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level, the type of information omitted from the visual scenario, how memory was assessed, and the delay interval. Most importantly, when responding to the specific questions, there was a strong tendency for children to make errors of commission about script-central events (i.e., falsely reporting events that were not presented). The 5–6-year-old children were especially prone to these errors, and were more likely than 9–10-year-old children to use their scripts as a basis for their inferences about highly expected, but omitted information. Understandably, in the legal system, “errors of commission are considered to be more grievous than errors of omission (i.e., failing to recall an actual event)” (Goodman, Golding, Hegelson, Haith, & Michelli, 1987, p. 22). Thus, it is important to use interview procedures that minimise witnesses’ tendency to confuse what was actually seen, with what their scripts lead them to infer. In the present study, children did not make errors of commission when information was obtained using very general prompting during free recall, and the present findings indicate that children are substantially less likely to make errors (i.e., infer that an expected event took place) when information is elicited in this general manner. When children asked specific questions about a particular episode, both questioners and those assessing the answers will need to be aware of possible contamination of answers by generic knowledge derived from similar prior episodes.

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