Interviewing children about past events: The influence of peer support and misleading questions

Abstract

The present experiment investigated the influence of peer support and leading and misleading questions on children's reports of a neutral event. Twenty-four children aged between 5 and 7 years and 24 children aged between 8 and 10 years took part in an event which focused on the parts and functions of the human body. Three days later they were interviewed about the event either alone or with a same-sex peer. The younger children recalled less information than the older children during prompted recall, and both age groups made very few errors. For questions, younger children made significantly more errors in response to directly misleading questions than to indirectly misleading questions, while for older children there was no difference in accuracy for the two types of misleading questions. Both age groups were very accurate in response to directly and indirectly leading questions. Peer support did not influence children's prompted recall reports about the event or their responses to questions. These results are discussed in the context of their implications for interviewing children about past events.