Abstract
Emotional valence and working memory ability (WM) affect false memories’ production in adults. Whereas a number of studies have investigated the role of emotional valence in children’s tendency to produce spontaneous false memories, individual differences in WM have not been previously included. In the current article, we were interested in investigating whether emotion and WM would interact in influencing the propensity to incur inferential false memories for scripted events. Ninety-eight typically developing children (first-, third-, and eighth- graders) were administered the Emotional false memory paradigm – allowing to study false memories for negative, positive, and neutral events – and a WM task. Results showed that regardless of age, valence influenced false memories’ production, such that positive events protected against incurring distortions. Furthermore, WM interacted with valence, such that children with higher WM abilities produced fewer false memories for negative events. Concerning confidence judgments, only the youngest group of children claimed to be overconfident when committing false memories for negative and neutral events. Results are discussed in terms of the role of individual differences in higher cognitive abilities interacting with the emotional content of to-be-remembered events.
Highlights
Laden events typically lead to better memories than mundane events
We wanted to deepen the understanding of the relation between emotion and working memory ability (WM) abilities on the creation of false memories during development
We found that individual differences in WM interact with emotion and influence false memory formation to a different extent
Summary
Laden events typically lead to better memories than mundane events. A deluge of studies proved this memory-enhancing effect in adults (e.g., Kensinger, 2009). Adults are not exempted from memory distortions when retrieving emotional events (e.g., Kensinger and Schacter, 2005; Brainerd et al, 2008b; Gallo et al, 2009; Mirandola et al, 2014b, 2017). Whether children benefit from a similar effect of emotion on memory and what factors may influence the development of false memories for emotional events are still debated. The current study was aimed at investigating the relation between the emotional content of to-be-remembered events and individual differences in higher cognitive processes, such as working memory capabilities, in children’s tendency to falsely remember everyday events.
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