Eyewitness Confidence and Accuracy Among Three Age Cohorts

The relation between eyewitness confidence and accuracy of 28 young (ages 18 to 35, M = 21.14), 33 young-old (ages 59 to 74, M = 67.73) and 29 old-old (ages 75 to 94, M = 80.66) persons was examined. After viewing a videotape of an ongoing crime, participants answered a multiple-choice questionnaire about the videotaped events and were asked to identify the suspectfrom a valid orfoil photographic line-up. Confidence in each answer was assessed using a 1-10 rating scale. Questionnaire performance declined across age groups but all groups performed poorly on the line-up task. Confidence and accuracy correlations were not signtficant for any group; however, confidence ratings were significantly higher for correct responses than for incorrect responses for all age groups. Thus age alone does not determine eyewitness competence.