Jurnal Psikologi Malaysia, 2010;olume 24:111-121.

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the occurrence of false memory in preschool children aged 3 to 6 years old. Three experiments were conducted using the traditional measurements of memory: free recall (experiment 1), cued recall (experiment 2) and recognition (experiment 3). A total of 24 children who were divided into three groups of 8, participated in the study. Result of experiment 1 showed a significant effect of categorical information on false memory. Preschool children were more likely to be influenced by false memory when the information was carried object category. Results if experiment 2 showed a significant difference in types of questions. More false memories were created for misleading questions than leading questions. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the preschool children were more likely to choose distracter pictures that target pictures. Within the distracter pictures, participants chose more false distracters than leading distracters. Implication of the findings suggests a strong evidence for the occurence of false memory in preschool children. The size of false memory effect was determined by the type of information presented to the children.