Anxious and nonanxious children's face identification

Abstract

The impact of stress on children's face identification is not well understood, partly because of the ethical and methodological challenges posed by this line of research. In the present research, such challenges were addressed by having 4-year-old and 5-year-old children (n = 80) participate in swimming lessons that were anxiety provoking for some, but not all, children. Information processing conditions were also manipulated by varying event frequency and retention interval. Children's identifications were examined after both a short (1.5–4 weeks) and long (1 year) delay. Anxiety was largely unrelated to the accuracy of children's swimming instructor identifications; however, after a long delay, anxiety had a negative effect on correct line-up rejections. In addition, the confidence–accuracy relation was influenced by the quality of the information processing conditions but only after a short delay. Implications for child witnesses are discussed.