ERIC Number: EJ1487297
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Sep
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0888-4080
EISSN: EISSN-1099-0720
Available Date: 2025-09-25
Children Provide Reasonable, but Imprecise, Temporal Information about a Recently Experienced Event
Heather L. Price1; Rachel Cantin1; Angela D. Evans2
Applied Cognitive Psychology, v39 n5 e70122 2025
Despite considerable interest in children's ability to provide temporal information, there remain many unanswered questions about what children can provide and how to elicit this information. In Study 1, children (N = 147, aged 5 to 10 years) participated in an activity session. Either shortly after or 1 day later, children completed an interview focused on temporal concepts: duration, temporal distance, day of the week. Children generally provided imprecise temporal information, though there was evidence of a developmental improvement in accuracy. There was little evidence of a negative impact of delay to recall on children's accuracy. In Study 2, children (N = 139, aged 6 to 12 years) participated in an activity session and 3 days later completed an interview about duration and temporal distance. Overall, accuracy was low, but most estimates were reasonable. The present studies have implications for both what is considered an accurate response and for what degree of temporal precision is reasonable to request from children.
Descriptors: Children, Time, Proximity, Accuracy, Age Differences, Language Usage, Time Management, Cognitive Ability, Time Perspective
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Psychology, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada; 2Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Peer reviewed
Direct link
