WebMD Medical News Louise Chang, MD Aug. 20, 2008 -- Children
can be quite imaginative. But how often does a child fool an
adult into believing that something didn't happen? New research
shows that children are able to fool adults quite readily when
it comes to believing that a real event did not actually happen.
But adults were a bit better at sniffing out the truth when a
child lied about a false event, filling in the blanks to pretend
that it took place. Study co-author Gail Goodman, PhD, says in a
news release that "the large number of children coming into
contact with the legal system, mostly as a result of abuse
cases, has motivated intense scientific effort to understand
children's true and false reports." Goodman is a psychology
professor with the University of California, Davis. She and her
team had more than 100 adults view videotapes of 3- to 5-year-
old boys and girls being interviewed about certain made-up or
real events. The children were asked things like: "Who was there
when you got in trouble