It turns out that kids who lie and don’t get caught have good working memories. Scientists have found that the better developed verbal (verbal) working memory a child has, the more subtly he is able to circle others around his finger.
Dr. Tracy Alloway, associate professor of psychology at the University of North Florida, and colleagues conducted an experiment in which 137 children aged 6-7 took part. To begin with, they were tested for verbal working memory. They were then given cards with questions written on them. The children knew that the answers to these questions were written on the back of the cards in different colors, and there was also a picture. The experimenters asked the children not to peek and left the room.
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A hidden camera was installed in the room, with the help of which the researchers could see which of the children looked at the back of the card. When the children answered the question, those who peeped gave the correct answer. The scientists then asked them a “trap” question: they asked. what color was the answer written on the back. Children with weak verbal working memory answered it correctly, giving themselves away. Those who had developed verbal working memory deliberately answered incorrectly in order to hide their deception.
The children were also tested for visual-spatial memory. In this case, no connection was found between this type of memory and the ability to lie and cover up traces – apparently, precisely because the lie involves the ability to process verbal information, and not visual.
Elena Nikolaeva
How and why do children lie? Psychology of children’s lies “
The book of the famous St. Petersburg psychologist Elena Nikolaeva is worth opening even to those of us for whom the issue of children’s lies is not an acute issue – for the sake of those subtle, precise remarks that this wonderful book is filled with.
“The study shows how important verbal working memory is for such a complex type of social interaction as lying. Children were required to simultaneously operate in their minds with various facts, including an idea of how the situation looked from the point of view of the experimenter. Therefore, parents may not need to be so upset when a child begins to make up stories, trying to prove that he did not steal cookies. If the fables sound plausible, this indicates good intellectual abilities.”, says Tracey Alloway.
Подробнее см. T. Alloway et al. «Liar, liar, working memory on fire: Investigating the role of working memory in childhood verbal deception», Journal of experimental child psychology, April 2015.