Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2014, College of Languages, Literature, and Social Sciences

A growing body of literature demonstrates that child witnesses are frequently asked to recall conversations during forensic investigations. The present study examined children's (n = 90) ability to recall a dyadic conversation after a one-week or three-week delay. Children were questioned about the target conversation using free recall and recognition style questioning during the memory test. Children's overall accuracy and characteristics of their memory reports were examined. Children in the one-week delay condition accurately reported significantly more of the conversation than children in the three-week delay condition, but free recall of the conversation was low for children in both conditions. The majority of what children recalled from the conversation was accurate. Additionally, when asked to recall the conversation in its entirety, children had a strong tendency to recall what they said from the target conversation and rarely recalled utterances said by their conversational partner. Memory for self-generated and partner-generated utterances did not differ during recognition testing. Memory for the structure of the conversation was low in both delay conditions and across all question types. Forensic implications and future directions are discussed.

Committee: Kamala London PhD (Advisor); Stephen Christman PhD (Committee Member); A. John McSweeny JD, PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology