Poole et al used a variety of children aged 3-8 yrs. old and showed them a science demonstration followed by listening to a story which contained information on the demonstration as well as extra added material. Once questioned about the demonstration, the results showed that the children tended to mix information between the story and demonstration. In a follow up, they were questioned as to where they got this information and children who were older tended to do better than the children who were younger. Poole et al concluded that younger children would make for poorer witnesses as they struggled with “source recognition”.
Rhodes et al used individuals from 3 different age groups (18-25; 35-45 and 55-78). They were shown 24 photographs which was representative of the three different age groups and asked to rate them for attractiveness. After that they were shown 48 photographs, 24 of which had been previously seen and 24 that acted as ‘distractors’. The results found out that young and middle aged participants were significantly more accurate than their older participants however, all age groups were most accurate in identifying pictures from their own age group. These findings fits in with the “differential experience hypothesis” which suggests that we are more able to identify people of our own age or of similar ethnic group. Therefore, the lack of experience with other age groups would result in a greater own-age bias. Similarly, the perceptual learning hypothesis suggests that individuals differ in the amount if expertise they have acquired for processing same age and other age faces. Therefore, regular contact with their own age group would make them more expert at recognising them yet lacking experience in other differences hence poorer recall.
A major criticism of such studies is that for the most part they were conducted in laboratory settings which