According to a study conducted by a University professor and a graduate student, older adults were far more confident when committing suggestibility errors compared to younger adults.
Asst. Psychology Prof. Chad Dodson and Graduate Arts & Sciences student Lacy Krueger conducted the study, which was recently published in "Psychonomic Bulletin and Review." Dodson said the study was conducted because of an interest in "the occurrence of high-confidence memory areas in older adults."
According to the study's report, younger and older adults showed similar rates of making suggestibility errors, responding that they had received a specific piece of information when in fact they had not.
Dodson and Krueger were also interested in how certain participants were of their recollections. They found that younger adults were less confident in their accuracy when they committed errors.
"What's important about the study is not that older adults are making more errors than younger adults," Dodson said. "We equate overall accuracy between younger and older adults. We look at when younger adults and older adults make a mistake, how confident they are in that error."
Krueger said the study found older adults make "high-confidence errors," having more confidence that they have seen something when it was only suggested to them.
The study relates to eye-witnesses who testify in front of juries, according to the report. Confidence of eye-witnesses is one of the leading factors that influence juries, Dodson said.
"Younger adults are behaving like eye-witnesses should behave," Dodson said. "Older adults are much less calibrated; this is what you don't want in an eye-witness."
Dodson said the data must be taken with "a grain of salt."
"Who knows if this would scale out for the real life," Dodson said. "But it does suggest perhaps some older adults are contributing to wrongful convictions. Perhaps advancing age is associated with increasing likelihood to wrongful convictions."
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