Study: Kids With Better Memories Are Good Liars
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Is your youngster a good liar? It may not be such a bad thing, research shows.
Experts at The University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom found that children who have a good memory are much better at covering up lies.
"While parents are usually not too proud when their kids lie, they can at least be pleased to discover that when their children are lying well, it means their children are becoming better at thinking and have good memory skills," said Dr. Elena Hoicka from the University of Sheffield's Department of Psychology.
The findings are the result of a study which investigated the role of working memory in verbal deception among children, according to the University.
The study, which involved 6 to 7-year-old children, had the kids play a trivia game in which they were told not to peek at the final answers on the back of the card.
Researchers were able to catch which kids lied—despite denials—with the help of hidden cameras and correct answers to the question which was based on the name of a fictitious cartoon character. Also, certain questions helped researchers differentiate the good liars from the bad.
During the experiment researchers measured two elements: verbal and visual-spatial working memory in the kids.
Verbal working memory is the number of words a person can remember all at one time and visual-spatial working memory is the number of images a person can remember at one time.
The good liars, results show, performed better in the verbal working memory test in both processing and recall, compared to the bad liars.
The link between lying and verbal memory is believed to stem from the fact that covering lies involves keeping track of lots of verbal information. Therefore, kids who possessed better memories and could keep track of lots of information were able to successfully make and maintain the lie.
In regards to visual-spatial working memory, there was no difference between good and bad liars. Researchers believe this is because ling usually doesn't involve keeping track of images.
Results of the study were published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.