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Updated: Jun 9, 2026

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
Published on: October 19, 2014
A multiprocess account of hindsight bias in children
Rüdiger F Pohl1, Ute J Bayen, Claudia Martin
1Department of Psychology, Universität Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany. pohl@psychologie.uni-mannheim.de
Abstract:
In hindsight, that is, after receiving the correct answers to difficult questions, people's recall of their own prior answers tends to be biased toward the correct answers. We tested 139 participants from 3 age groups (9- and 12-year-olds and adults) in a hindsight-bias paradigm and found that all groups showed hindsight bias. Multinomial model-based analyses indicated that all age groups used the correct answers to reconstruct their original answers. In addition, the youngest group showed memory impairment caused by the presentation of the correct answers as well as an increased belief that they knew the correct answers all along. These results support a multiprocess explanation of hindsight bias in children.
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