Professor Paola Castelli's Research Paper Accepted for Publication in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Professor Paola Castelli’s research paper “Resisting Imagination and Confabulation: Effects of Metacognitive Training” will be appearing in a forthcoming issue of Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

The study, conducted in collaboration with Prof. Simona Ghetti, of the University of California, Davis, investigated whether children (8- to 9-years old) and adults could be trained to engage in memorability-based inferences to reject false, but highly familiar (increased through imagination and confabulation), events. Across two experiments, a set of metacognitive instructions was identified that effectively improved memory accuracy in adults as well as children by increasing rejection of false familiar events.

The results are important from a theoretical standpoint as they clarify the boundary conditions of successful memorability monitoring in children. They are also relevant from an applied perspective as they suggest that metacognitive instructions could be introduced in forensic interview protocol to increase the accuracy of child witness reports.