Is there a relation between suggestibility, working memory and inhibition control in middle childhood?

Previous research investigating the relation between working memory and children’s suggestibility yielded mixed results. In the present study, 88 primary-school and 85 secondary-school children were assessed with the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS). They read a story, were given immediate and delayed recall tests and answered misleading questions before and after receiving negative feedback. In addition, they performed the Global-Local and Stroop tasks to measure the inhibitory function of central executive (N = 173) and a verbal span task to measure the capacity of the phonological loop (N = 115). Consistent developmental differences were observed in all tasks. Interference indices did not correlate with children’s suggestibility. However, span scores were positively correlated with immediate and delayed recall and negatively correlated with false assents to misleading questions (only after receiving negative feedback). Results suggest that working memory capacity may be more important than that of inhibitory function in predicting children’s suggestibility.