Age, neuropsychological, and social cognitive measures as predictors of individual differences in susceptibility to the misinformation effect

This study examined the relationship between age, neuropsychological performance (indexed by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, California Verbal Learning Test, the backward digit span and the verbal paired associates scale, VPA), social cognitive status (indexed by the Children's Social Desirability and the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale), and susceptibility to the misinformation effect (Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978) in 65 children and adolescents. The predictors accounted for 17% to 22% of variation in the misinformation effect. In particular, participants with better VPA scores were more susceptible to the effect. In a secondary analysis involving interrogative suggestibility, better VPA scores correlated with lower suggestibility. These findings show that better associative memory can be correlated with either higher or lower suggestibility depending on the way in which participants are misled. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.