accurate descriptions of actions and persons than
younger witnesses when their processing resources are
depleted, but they can provide as much information as
younger witnesses under some conditions. With regard
to face recognition, a number of recent studies suggest
that older adults are more prone to what are referred to
as false recognitions.Recall of Persons, Actions, and Events
Where comparisons have been made between different
age groups, young adults have been found to be superior
to older adults in some eyewitness skills. For example,
Dan Yarmey in his studies reports that young adults are
more accurate in their recall of perpetrator characteris-
tics, environmental details, and details of actions than
older adults. This applies to both free recall (where the
witness provides a narrative account from his or her
own perspective) and cued recall (where the witness
responds to interviewer questions). Older adult wit-
nesses tend to provide fewer descriptions of the perpe-
trator (physical and clothing characteristics) than
younger witnesses. Differences between young and
older adults in the amount and accuracy of recall may be
even greater over long retention intervals (such as a
month) and when conditions at the time of witnessing
are poor, reducing the resources that are available to
attend to what is happening. This may mean that there
are fewer cues available at the time a witness tries to
retrieve the information. Fergus Craik’s classic work on
memory processes indicates that older adults benefit
from “environmental support” during questioning (the
retrieval phase). This could take the form of an interview
that provides the witness with some instruction on how
to recreate, during retrieval, the personal, physical, and
emotional context at the time of witnessing. For exam-
ple, when older adults are questioned with a Cognitive
Interview, a procedure that can aid memory search and
retrieval, they can recall as much and sometimes even
more information than younger adults. One qualifica-
tion should be borne in mind, however. The educational
level and verbal intelligence of the adult (young and old)
appear to be important factors in boosting his or her
recall performance, as compared with younger adults.
While further research is needed on this issue, police
officers and jurors should note that although verbal
recall can be reduced in old age, a verbally skilled and
well-educated senior can be just as reliable a witness as
a young adult.Susceptibility to Misinformation
Several recent studies have shown that older adults
may experience difficulty in distinguishing between
what they have witnessed themselves as opposed to
what they may have heard from someone else (i.e., a
problem identifying the precise source of the informa-
tion). A typical consequence is that any misleading
information that may be encountered subsequent to
witnessing an event is erroneously reported as if it
were part of the original event. However, older adults
are not always more susceptible to misinformation.
The contradictory findings are likely due to the fact
that older adults are remembering less information
overall, and this may also mean that they may pay less
attention to misleading details. Additionally, there are
differential rates of memory declines in older adults
depending on educational level, verbal intelligence,
intellectual pursuits, expertise in different skill domains,
and level of physical activity. Finally, the conditions
under which older adults are tested in laboratory
studies (e.g., video presentation of event, short reten-
tion interval, and single interview) may obscure dif-
ferences in performance that might arise under more
realistic test conditions.Recognition and Identification
The typical finding in laboratory studies of unfamiliar
face recognition (the recognition of faces seen only
once before) is that older adults are more likely to
“false alarm” to new faces. In other words, they are
more likely to falsely “recognize” a face they had not
seen previously. Of particular concern are the higher
rates of false identifications when seniors view line-
ups that do not contain the culprit. As indicated ear-
lier, aging is typically associated with a reduction in
cognitive resources and an increased reliance on non-
analytic strategies such as familiarity. It is the recol-
lection of contextual information that is critical in an
eyewitness situation that older adults might have par-
ticular difficulty with.
Field studies of actual eyewitnesses also provide us
with some information on the identification ability of
older adult witnesses. Tim Valentine collected data
from 640 witnesses who attempted to identify suspects
in 314 lineups; data were obtained from four identifi-
cation suites in London in September 2000. Broadly
classified by age, 48% of those below 20 years of ageElderly Eyewitnesses——— 253E-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:42 PM Page 253