The current essay aimed to investigate the susceptibility of children to memory distortion by assessing false memories, which are the remembrance of events which actually did not occur. Memory performance was evaluated in 57 school and preschool children through the presentation of a series of simple sentences that represent children’s daily life. Results suggest that memory has not been immune from errors and distortions, that is, children falsely remembered information about the studied material. A comparison between the age groups identified that the school children produced fewer false memories than those in preschool. Thus, schooling of children seemed to help older children in identifying correct information and rejecting the false ones.
Memory; false memories; children
