Cornell Chronicle: Memory on trial: Children more reliable?

The U.S. legal system has long assumed that some witnesses, such as adults, are more reliable than others, such as children....[but] research suggests that children, in fact, are less likely [than adults to produce false memories and, therefore, are more likely to give accurate testimony when properly questioned....[M]emories are captured and recorded separately and differently in two distinct parts of the mind.... [C]hildren depend more heavily on a part of the mind that records, "what actually happened," while adults depend more on another part of the mind that records, "the meaning of what happened." As a result, they say, adults are more susceptible to false memories, which can be extremely problematic in court cases.