Evidence for age-related differences in culprit-presence detection and guessing-based selection in lineups.

Abstract

The well-validated two-high threshold eyewitness identification model was applied to examine age-related differences in the cognitive processes underlying eyewitness responses to sequential lineups. In the first step, a large data set originally collected for a different purpose was reanalyzed to examine age-related differences in culprit-presence detection, culprit-absence detection, and guessing-based selection among young to middle-aged adults, young-old adults, and old-old adults. In the second step, a novel experiment was conducted to test the robustness of the conclusions from the reanalysis. The results of both analyses are fairly consistent. The probabilities of memory-based culprit-presence detection and, to some degree, culprit-absence detection decrease with age. In contrast, the probability of guessing-based selection increases with age. This shift from memory-based detection to guessing-based selection highlights potential challenges for the validity of eyewitness testimony posed by age-related differences in the cognitive processes underlying eyewitness responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).