Psychology and Aging · 1989 · 175 citations · 0 references
Social SciencesBehavioral SciencesPsychologyCognitive PsychologyExperimental PsychologyMemoryEyewitness MemoryEyewitness TestimonyFalse MemoryMemory RetrievalSource MemoryWitness TestimonyAge-related Differences In MemoryEyewitness Autobiographical RecallEyewitness Memory TestimonyEyewitness NarrativeMemory Recall AccuracyRecall ErrorsRecall In Child WitnessesRecall In Testimony
The study examined age differences in source memory using two experimental paradigms. Experiment 1 employed a reality‑monitoring paradigm in which participants performed, imagined, or watched actions and later identified them, while Experiment 2 used an eyewitness‑testimony paradigm involving film viewing, a written story, and a subsequent recognition test. Elderly participants exhibited greater source‑confusion errors, more false positives, and higher confidence in incorrect responses, indicating that declining source memory reduces eyewitness accuracy.
Age differences in memory for the source of memories were investigated using two different experimental paradigms. Experiment 1 used a reality monitoring paradigm. A series of actions were either performed, imagined, or watched, and subjects were later tested for their ability to recognize the actions and identify their origins. Elderly subjects made more false positive responses than did young subjects, and they made more source confusion errors, attributing actions to the wrong sources. Both new and imagined actions were most often misclassified as watched. Experiment 2 used an eyewitness testimony paradigm. After watching a film, subjects read a written version of the story. A recognition test showed that elderly subjects were more often misled by false information in the story than were the younger subjects, and were more confident that their erroneous responses were correct. The findings suggest that a decline in memory for sources may diminish the accuracy of elderly witnesses.