There has been a lot of research into what effects eyewitness testimony (EWT), one of these being age.
In 2001, Poole and Lindsay conducted an experiment to find out whether children could source monitor. They got children (aged 3-8) to watch a science demonstration and then listen to a story afterwards. When questioned later on, they found that the younger children got the information sources mixed up and so they wouldn’t make effective eyewitnesses. However, the younger children would lack schemas and the vocabulary needed to describe the science experiment. This means that they wouldn’t have been able to describe the experiment when asked to recall it, and therefore would make this experiment less valid.
Anastasi and Rhodes performed an experiment in 2006 to see if recall is better when identifying people from the same age range (own age bias). They showed 24 photos to 3 age groups and then later they were shown 48 photos and had to identify the original 24. They found that generally the younger age groups were better at recall, but all age groups were better at recognising their own age group. They concluded that it’s easier to recall people in your own age range. This experiment was conducted in a lab, so lacks mundane realism and so would have affected the results. Also, individual differences would have affected the results because some of the photos may look like people you know, so recall would be better.
Yarmey conducted an experiment to see if age affects recall ability (1993). He got a young woman to stop people in the street and chat to them for 15 seconds and then 2 minutes later they were asked to recall the characteristics of the woman. They conducted this on 651 participants (pps). The results showed that all age groups performed similarly, but younger people were more confident in their recall, and so concluded that age doesn’t affect EWT. This