Abstract
Introduction Reality monitoring (RM) refers to the ability to discriminate internal memories from external events. It develops gradually from ages 4 to 5, and reaches the level of adults at age 11 or 12. Some research on the modality differences of reality monitoring show a developmental trend, with the effect of visual passage being more predominant than the auditory passage. But little research has tried to investigate this trend using different materials in the same modality. The present study explored the developmental differences between visual and auditory passages in reality monitoring using different kinds of stimuli.
Method In order to compare the developmental differences in reality monitoring between and within different modalities, a total of 223 subjects including preschoolers (5 years old) and school children (7 and 9 years old) were enrolled to make source discriminative reaction. The materials used consisted of two visual stimuli including still and flash moving pictures, and two auditory stimuli including natural sound and sound of words. The contents in the two conditions were matched.
Results ANOVA of the 3 (age: 5 vs. 7 vs. 9 years) × 2 (visual stimuli: still vs. flash moving pictures) design showed that there was a significant interaction between age and the visual materials used, F (2, 110) = 3.31, p < 0.05. We found that performance in source discrimination of 5-year-olds was poorer than that of 7- and 9-year-olds. No significant main effect of the materials (still or flash moving pictures) was found in the source discrimination task in children of ages 5 and 7, but for the 9-year-olds, the performance was better when using flash moving pictures than still pictures. The results of the auditory experiment showed significant main effect of age and the materials. The performance in source discrimination tasks was better when using natural sound than the sound of words. Additional ANOVA of the 3 (age) × 4 (still pictures, flash moving pictures, natural sound, sound of words) showed a significant interaction between age and the materials, F (6, 221) = 2.80, p = 0.012. Simple main effects analysis showed the following performance rank ordering: RMpicture > RMword = RMflash = RMsound = RMword for the 5-year-olds; RMpicture = RMflash > RMsound = RMword for the 7-year-olds; and RMpicture = RMflash = RMsound > RMword for the 9-year-olds.
Conclusion The kinds of stimuli used affect children’s performance in source discrimination. In the visual condition, younger children’s source discrimination of still pictures is better than that of flash moving pictures, whereas the contrary is true for older children. With auditory stimuli, children’s source discrimination of natural sound is better than that with the sound of words. Also, there exists a developmental trend for source discrimination: the reality monitoring of still pictures was highest for 5-year-olds; the reality monitoring of still and flash moving pictures is highest for 7-year-olds; and the reality monitoring of both the visual and sound passages is highest for 9-year-olds.
| Keywords: | reality monitoring; visual and auditory modalities; children’s development |
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