[USA] Older adults may be unreliable eyewitnesses, study shows / EurekAlert!, 21 February 2007
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/uov-oam022107.php
"A University of Virginia study suggests that older adults are not only more inclined than younger adults to make errors in recollecting details that have been suggested to them, but are also more likely than younger people to have a very high level of confidence in their recollections, even when wrong. The finding has implications regarding the reliability of older persons’ eyewitness testimonies in courtrooms.
The study, "I misremember it well: Why older adults are unreliable eyewitnesses," is published in a recent issue of the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. "There are potentially significant practical implications to these results as confident but mistaken eyewitness testimony may be the largest cause of wrongful convictions in the US," said Chad Dodson, the study’s lead researcher. "Given that older adults will constitute an increasing proportion of the US population, there may be a corresponding increase in the occurrence of wrongful convictions based on the testimony of highly confident but mistaken eyewitnesses."