1) Younger children and older adults perform worse on eyewitness testimony (EWT) than young or middle-aged adults due to difficulties with source monitoring. 2) A study found that younger children incorporated new information from a story into their accounts of an original science demonstration, showing an inability to distinguish the source of information (poor source monitoring). 3) In contrast, older children were able to remove the new information from their accounts, showing better source monitoring abilities than younger children. This suggests EWT is less reliable from young children and older adults.

1. Factors affecting the accuracy of
EWT
AGE!

2. Children are more
willing than adults to …but they are often wrong
make an Dekle et al (1996)
identification…
Children are
It’s not just children… unreliable
eyewitnesses
Older people also because they are
perform worse on EWT more susceptible to
studies than young or the post-event
middle-aged participants effect
Old men
- Which is?
in
particular

3. Age - research
Poole & Lindsay (2001) AIM:
- Source Monitoring To investigate the
effect of age on the
Source accuracy of EWT
monitoring is
whether or
not someone
can identify
the origin of
the
information
i.e. where they
heard/saw it
first

4. Age - research
PROCEDURE:
Children aged 3-8 – watched science demonstration
Parents read children a story (which included some element
of the science demonstration and some new information)
Children questioned about original science
demonstration, found they incorporated much of the new
information from the parent’s story – children were
asked to identify the origin of the information (this is
called source monitoring)
The researchers were interested in whether the children could
source monitor and distinguish between information from the
science demo and information from the story

5. Age - research
FINDINGS:
Older children revised their account of the science
demonstration and removed the post-event information
Younger children were not able to do this
CONCLUSIONS:
Because the young children weren’t able to distinguish
where the information came from, it is concluded that
children are poor at source monitoring
It can be implied from this that older children are more
likely to give more accurate accounts of events, whilst
EWT from a young child is more likely to be less
accurate and therefore less reliable

6. Age – research evaluation
What type of
experiment did What’s good about this?
Poole and
Lindsay conduct?
What’s
not so Who were the
good participants?
about Ethical considerations?
this?

7. Age evaluation
High ecological
validity
For example, it was
conducted in a real life
natural setting
This a strength
because the
findings can be This means that
generalised beyond the researchers
the research were investigating
real life behaviour
setting and applied
to real life EWT

8. Age evaluation
Ethical Issues
For example, the participants
were children and therefore
unable to give fully informed
consent
This a strength
because This means that
researchers had the parents of
parents actively the children
involved and involved were
required to give
consent was consent
gathered

9. Age evaluation
Low control
For example, variables such
as light, time of day etc were
not controlled
This a weakness
because it
suggests that This means that
researchers cannot the research has
establish cause and low internal
validity
effect between
the IV and the DV