Age differences in accuracy and choosing in eyewitness identification and face recognition

Contribution of internal noise and calculation efficiency to face discrimination deficits in older adults

Classification images (CIs) measured in a face discrimination task differ significantly between older and younger observers. These age differences are consistent with the hypothesis that older adults sample diagnostic face information less efficiently, or have higher levels of internal noise, compared to younger adults. The current experiments assessed the relative contributions of efficiency and internal noise to age differences in face discrimination using the external noise masking and double-pass response consistency paradigms. Experiment 1 measured discrimination thresholds for faces embedded in several levels of static white noise, and the resulting threshold-vs.-noise curves were used to estimate calculation efficiency and equivalent input noise: older observers had lower efficiency and higher equivalent input noise than younger observers. Experiment 2 presented observers with two identical sequences of faces embedded in static white noise to measure the association between response accuracy and response consistency and estimate the internal:external (i/e) noise ratio for each observer. We found that i/e noise ratios did not differ significantly between groups. These results suggest that age differences in face discrimination are due to differences in calculation efficiency and additive internal noise, but not to age differences in multiplicative internal noise.

The effects of age bias on neural correlates of successful and unsuccessful response inhibition in younger and older adults

Facilitating communication between generations has become increasingly important. However, individuals often demonstrate a preference for their own age group, which can impact social interactions, and such bias in young adults even extends to inhibitory control. To assess whether older adults also experience this phenomenon, a group of younger and older adults completed a Go/NoGo task incorporating young and old faces, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Within the networks subserving successful and unsuccessful response inhibition, patterns of activity demonstrated distinct neural age bias effects in each age group. During successful inhibition, the older adult group demonstrated significantly increased activity to other-age faces, whereas unsuccessful inhibition in the younger group produced significantly enhanced activity to other-age faces. Consequently, the findings of the study confirm that neural responses to successful and unsuccessful inhibition can be contingent on the stimulus-specific attribute of age in both younger and older adults. These findings have important implications in regard to minimizing the emergence of negative consequences, such as ageism, as a result of related implicit biases.

What happens to our representation of identity as familiar faces age? Evidence from priming and identity aftereffects

Matching identity in images of unfamiliar faces is error prone, but we can easily recognize highly variable images of familiar faces - even images taken decades apart. Recent theoretical development based on computational modelling can account for how we recognize extremely variable instances of the same identity. We provide complementary behavioural data by examining older adults' representation of older celebrities who were also famous when young. In Experiment 1, participants completed a long-lag repetition priming task in which primes and test stimuli were the same age or different ages. In Experiment 2, participants completed an identity after effects task in which the adapting stimulus was an older or young photograph of one celebrity and the test stimulus was a morph between the adapting identity and a different celebrity; the adapting stimulus was the same age as the test stimulus on some trials (e.g., both old) or a different age (e.g., adapter young, test stimulus old). The magnitude of priming and identity after effects were not influenced by whether the prime and adapting stimulus were the same age or different age as the test face. Collectively, our findings suggest that humans have one common mental representation for a familiar face (e.g., Paul McCartney) that incorporates visual changes across decades, rather than multiple age-specific representations. These findings make novel predictions for state-of-the-art algorithms (e.g., Deep Convolutional Neural Networks).

Healthy aging impairs face discrimination ability

Face images enable individual identities to be discriminated from one another. We aimed to quantify age-related changes in different aspects of face identity discrimination. Face discrimination sensitivity was measured with a memory-free "odd-one-out" task. Five age groups (N = 15) of healthy adults with normal vision were tested: 20, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, and 80-89. Sensitivity was measured for full-face images (all features visible), external features (head-shape, hairline), internal features (nose, mouth, eyes, and eyebrows) and closed-contour shapes (control object). Sensitivity to full-faces continuously declined by approximately 13% per decade, after 50 years of age. When age-related differences in visual acuity were controlled, the effect of age on face discrimination sensitivity remained. Sensitivity to face features also deteriorated with age. Although the effect for external features was similar to full-faces, the rate of decline was considerably steeper (approximately 3.7 times) for internal, relative to external, features. In contrast, there was no effect of age on sensitivity to shapes. All age groups demonstrated the same overall pattern of sensitivity to different types of face information. Healthy aging was associated with a continuous decline in sensitivity to both full-faces and face features, although encoding of internal features was disproportionately impaired. This age-related deficit was independent of differences in low-level vision. That sensitivity to shapes was unaffected by age suggests these results cannot be explained by general cognitive decline or lower-level visual deficits. Instead, healthy aging is associated with a specific decline in the mechanisms that underlie face discrimination.

The Effects of Separate Facial Areas on Emotion Recognition in Different Adult Age Groups: A Laboratory and a Naturalistic Study

The identification of facial expressions is critical for social interaction. The ability to recognize facial emotional expressions declines with age. These age effects have been associated with differential age-related looking patterns. The present research project set out to systematically test the role of specific facial areas for emotion recognition across the adult lifespan. Study 1 investigated the impact of displaying only separate facial areas versus the full face on emotion recognition in 62 younger (20-24 years) and 65 middle-aged adults (40-65 years). Study 2 examined if wearing face masks differentially compromises younger (18-33 years, N = 71) versus middle-aged to older adults' (51-83 years, N = 73) ability to identify different emotional expressions. Results of Study 1 suggested no general decrease in emotion recognition across the lifespan; instead, age-related performance seems to depend on the specific emotion and presented face area. Similarly, Study 2 observed only deficits in the identification of angry, fearful, and neutral expressions in older adults, but no age-related differences with regards to happy, sad, and disgusted expressions. Overall, face masks reduced participants' emotion recognition; however, there were no differential age effects. Results are discussed in light of current models of age-related changes in emotion recognition.

Face perception across the adult lifespan: evidence for age-related changes independent of general intelligence

It is well-documented that face perception - including facial expression and identity recognition ability - declines with age. To date, however, it is not yet well understood whether this age-related decline reflects face-specific effects, or instead can be accounted for by well-known declines in general intelligence. We examined this issue using a relatively large, healthy, age-diverse (18-88 years) sample (N = 595) who were assessed on well-established measures of face perception and general intelligence. Replicating previous work, we observed that facial expression recognition, facial identity recognition, and general intelligence all showed declines with age. Of importance, the age-related decline of expression and identity recognition was present even when the effects of general intelligence were statistically controlled. Moreover, facial expression and identity ability each showed significant unique associations with age. These results indicate that face perception ability becomes poorer as we age, and that this decline is to some extent relatively focal in nature. Results are in line with a hierarchical structure of face perception ability, and suggest that age appears to have independent effects on the general and specific face processing levels within this structure.

Age Differences in Face Processing: The Role of Perceptual Degradation and Holistic Processing

OBJECTIVES

We simultaneously investigated the role of three hypotheses regarding age-related differences in face processing: perceptual degradation, impaired holistic processing, and an interaction between the two.

METHODS

Young adults (YA) aged 20-33-year olds, middle-age adults (MA) aged 50-64-year olds, and older adults (OA) aged 65-82-year olds were tested on the context congruency paradigm, which allows measurement of face-specific holistic processing across the life span (Meinhardt-Injac, Persike & Meinhardt, 2014. Acta Psychologica, 151, 155-163). Perceptual degradation was examined by measuring performance with faces that were not filtered (FSF), with faces filtered to preserve low spatial frequencies (LSF), and with faces filtered to preserve high spatial frequencies (HSF).

RESULTS

We found that reducing perceptual signal strength had a greater impact on MA and OA for HSF faces, but not LSF faces. Context congruency effects were significant and of comparable magnitude across ages for FSF, LSF, and HSF faces. By using watches as control objects, we show that these holistic effects reflect face-specific mechanisms in all age groups.

DISCUSSION

Our results support the perceptual degradation hypothesis for faces containing only HSF and suggest that holistic processing is preserved in aging even under conditions of reduced signal strength.

Age-related changes in amplitude, latency and specialization of ERP responses to faces and watches

Healthy aging is associated with impairments in face recognition. While earlier research suggests that these impairments arise during memory retrieval, more recent findings suggest that earlier mechanisms, at the perceptual stage, may also be at play. However, results are often inconsistent and very few studies have included a non-face control stimulus to facilitate interpretation of results with respect to the implication of specialized face mechanisms vs. general cognitive factors. To address these issues, P100, N170 and P200 event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured during processing of faces and watches. For faces, age-related differences were found for P100, N170 and P200 ERPs. For watches, age-related differences were found for N170 and P200 ERPs. Older adults showed less selective and less lateralized N170 responses to faces, suggesting that ERPs can detect age-related de-differentiation of specialized face networks. We conclude that age-related impairments in face recognition arise in part from difficulties in the earliest perceptual stages of visual information processing. A working model is presented based on coarse-to-fine analysis of visually similar exemplars.

Voice parade procedures: optimising witness performance

Unfamiliar voice identification is error-prone. Whilst the investigation of system variables may indicate ways of boosting earwitness performance, this is an under-researched area. Two experiments were conducted to investigate how methods of presenting voices during a parade affect accuracy and self-rated confidence. In each experiment participants listened to a target voice, and were later asked to identify that voice from a nine-person target present or target absent parade. In Experiment 1, accuracy did not vary across parades comprising 15 or 30 s sample durations. Overall, when the target was present, participants correctly identified the target voice with 39% accuracy. However, when the target was absent, participants correctly rejected the parade 6% of the time. There was no relationship between accuracy and confidence. In Experiment 2, performance with a serial procedure, in which participants responded after hearing all nine voices, was compared with a sequential procedure, in which participants made a decision after listening to each voice. Overall accuracy was higher with the sequential procedure. These results highlight the importance of system variable research in voice identification. Different methods of presenting voices have the potential to support higher levels of accuracy than the procedure currently recommended in England and Wales.

Perceptual Similarity Can Drive Age-Related Elevation of False Recognition

Older adults consistently show elevated rates of false recognition of new items that are related to studied items. This finding has been largely attributed to a greater tendency for older adults to rely on conceptual gist during memory recognition tasks. However, perceptual factors may also be implicated considering that related items are not only conceptually but also perceptually similar. While some findings do suggest that age-related increases in false recognitions can be driven by perceptual factors, little is known about the nature and circumstances under which these factors operate. To address this gap, we measured basic visual ability as well as false recognition for four different image categories (upright faces, inverted faces, chairs, houses) in younger (n = 34) and older (n = 34) adults. Each image category represented different levels of variability in perceptual similarity and pre-experimental exposure. Perceptual similarity was objectively defined on the basis of the low-level properties of the images. We found evidence that perceptual similarity can contribute to elevated rates of false recognition in older adults. Our results also suggest that declines in basic visual abilities influence elevated false recognition in older adults for perceptually similar but not perceptually dissimilar items. We conclude that both perceptual and conceptual similarity can drive age-related differences in false recognition.

Aging and recognition memory: A meta-analysis

Recognizing a stimulus as previously encountered is a crucial everyday life skill and a critical task motivating theoretical development in models of human memory. Although there are clear age-related memory deficits in tasks requiring recall or memory for context, the existence and nature of age differences in recognition memory remain unclear. The nature of any such deficits is critical to understanding the effects of age on memory because recognition tasks allow fewer strategic backdoors to supporting memory than do tasks of recall. Consequently, recognition may provide the purest measure of age-related memory deficit of all standard memory tasks. We conducted a meta-analysis of 232 prior experiments on age differences in recognition memory. As an organizing framework, we used signal-detection theory (Green & Swets, 1966; Macmillan & Creelman, 2005) to characterize recognition memory in terms of both discrimination between studied items and unstudied lures (d') and response bias or criterion (c). Relative to young adults, older adults showed reduced discrimination accuracy and a more liberal response criterion (i.e., greater tendency to term items new). Both of these effects were influenced by multiple, differing variables, with larger age deficits when studied material must be discriminated from familiar or related material, but smaller when studying semantically rich materials. These results support a view in which neither the self-initiation of mnemonic processes nor the deployment of strategic processes is the only source of age-related memory deficits, and they add to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying those changes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Confidence of Older Eyewitnesses: Is It Diagnostic of Identification Accuracy?

Since the late 1980s evidence has been accumulating that confidence recorded at the time of identification is a reliable postdictor of eyewitness identification. Nonetheless, there may be noteworthy exceptions. In a re-analysis of a field study by Sauerland and Sporer (2009; N = 720; n = 436 choosers between 15 and 83 years old) we show that the postdictive value of confidence was reduced for participants aged 40 years or older. Different calibration indices and Bayesian analyses demonstrate a progressive dissociation between identification performance and confidence across age groups. While the confidence expressed following an identification remained unchanged across the lifespan, identification accuracy decreased. Young, highly confident witnesses were much more likely to be accurate than less confident witnesses. With increasing age, witnesses were more likely to be overconfident, particularly at the medium and high levels of confidence, and the postdictive value of confidence and decision times decreased. We conclude that witness age may be an important moderator to take into account when evaluating identification evidence.

Classification images characterize age-related deficits in face discrimination

Face perception is impaired in older adults, but the cause of this decline is not well understood. We examined this issue by measuring Classification Images (CIs) in a face discrimination task in younger and older adults. Faces were presented in static, white visual noise, and face contrast was varied with a staircase to maintain an accuracy rate of ≈71%. The noise fields were used to construct a CI using the method described by Nagai et al. (2013) and each observer's CI was cross-correlated with the visual template of a linear ideal discriminator to obtain an estimate of the absolute efficiency of visual processing. Face discrimination thresholds were lower in younger than older adults. Like Sekuler, Gaspar, Gold, and Bennett (2004), we found that CIs from younger adults contained structure near the eyes and brows, suggesting that those observers consistently relied on information conveyed by pixels in those regions of the stimulus. CIs obtained from older adults were noticeably different: CIs from only two older adults exhibited structure near the eye/brow regions, and CIs from the remaining older observers showed no obvious structure. Nevertheless, face discrimination thresholds in both groups were strongly and similarly correlated with the cross-correlation between the CI and the ideal template, suggesting that despite older observers' lack of consistent structure, the CI method is sensitive to between-subject differences in older observers' perceptual strategy.

Age-related differences in spontaneous trait judgments from facial appearance

We tested whether there are age-related declines in detecting cues to trustworthiness, a skill that has been demonstrated to be rapid and automatic in younger adults. Young (M _age = 21.2 years) and older (M _age = 70.15 years) adults made criminal appearance judgments to unfamiliar faces, which were presented at a duration of 100, 500 or 1,000 ms. Participants' response times and judgment confidence were recorded. Older were poorer than young adults at judging trustworthiness at 100 ms, and were slower overall in making their judgments. Further, the cues (i.e. perceptions of anger, trustworthiness and happiness) underlying criminality judgments were the same across age groups. Judgment confidence increased with increasing exposure duration for both age groups, while older adults were less confident in their judgments overall than their young counterparts. The implications are discussed.

An Own-Age Bias in Recognizing Faces with Horizontal Information

Horizontal information, as a result of a selective filtering process, is essential in younger adults’ (YA) ability to recognize human faces. Obermeyer et al. (2012) recently reported impaired recognition of faces with horizontal information in older adults (OA) suggesting age-variant processing. Two yet unconsidered factors (stimulus age and exposure duration) that may have influenced previous results, were investigated in this study. Forty-seven YA (18–35 years) and 49 OA (62–83 years) were tested in a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 mixed design with the between-subjects factors age group (YA vs. OA) and stimulus age (young faces vs. older faces) and the within-subjects factors filter [filtered (HF) faces vs. unfiltered faces (UF)] and exposure duration (0.8 s vs. 8 s). Subjects were presented morph videos between pairs of faces: a starting face gradually merged into either the previously encoded target face or a control face. As expected, results showed an increase in recognition sensitivity (d′) with longer exposure duration in YA with both younger and older HF faces. OA, however, were unable to recognize filtered young faces not even with increased exposure duration. Furthermore, only elderly participants showed more accurate recognition with faces of their own age relative to other-age faces (own-age bias, OAB). For YA no OAB was observed. Filtered face recognition was significantly correlated with unfiltered recognition in YA but not in OA. It is concluded, that processing of horizontal information changes at a higher age. Presenting filtered or unfiltered faces both targets convergent face-specific processing only in YA but not in OA.

The relationship between face recognition ability and socioemotional functioning throughout adulthood

The relationship between face recognition ability and socioemotional functioning has been widely explored. However, how aging modulates this association regarding both objective performance and subjective-perception is still neglected. Participants, aged between 18 and 81 years, performed a face memory test and completed subjective face recognition and socioemotional questionnaires. General and social anxiety, and neuroticism traits account for the individual variation in face recognition abilities during adulthood. Aging modulates these relationships because as they age, individuals that present a higher level of these traits also show low-level face recognition ability. Intriguingly, the association between depression and face recognition abilities is evident with increasing age. Overall, the present results emphasize the importance of embedding face metacognition measurement into the context of these studies and suggest that aging is an important factor to be considered, which seems to contribute to the relationship between socioemotional and face-cognitive functioning.

The Composite Effect Is Face-Specific in Young but Not Older Adults

In studying holistic face processing across the life-span there are only few attempts to separate face-specific from general aging effects. Here we used the complete design of the composite paradigm (Cheung et al., 2008) with faces and novel non-face control objects (watches) to investigate composite effects in young (18–32 years) and older adults (63–78 years). We included cueing conditions to alert using a narrow or a wide attentional focus when comparing the composite objects, and used brief and relaxed exposure durations for stimulus presentation. Young adults showed large composite effects for faces, but none for watches. In contrast, older adults showed strong composite effects for faces and watches, albeit the effects were larger for faces. Moreover, composite effects for faces were larger for the wide attentional focus in both age groups, while the composite effects for watches of older adults were alike for both cueing conditions. Older adults showed low accuracy at the same levels for both types of stimuli when attended and non-attended halves were incongruent. Increasing presentation times improved performance strongly for congruent but not for incongruent composite objects. These findings suggest that the composite effects of older adults reflect substantial decline in the ability to control irrelevant stimuli, which takes effect both in non-face objects and in faces. In young adults, highly efficient attentional control mostly precludes interference of irrelevant features in novel objects, thus their composite effects reflect holistic integration specific for faces or objects of expertise.

Super-Memorizers Are Not Super-Recognizers

Humans have a natural expertise in recognizing faces. However, the nature of the interaction between this critical visual biological skill and memory is yet unclear. Here, we had the unique opportunity to test two individuals who have had exceptional success in the World Memory Championships, including several world records in face-name association memory. We designed a range of face processing tasks to determine whether superior/expert face memory skills are associated with distinctive perceptual strategies for processing faces. Superior memorizers excelled at tasks involving associative face-name learning. Nevertheless, they were as impaired as controls in tasks probing the efficiency of the face system: face inversion and the other-race effect. Super memorizers did not show increased hippocampal volumes, and exhibited optimal generic eye movement strategies when they performed complex multi-item face-name associations. Our data show that the visual computations of the face system are not malleable and are robust to acquired expertise involving extensive training of associative memory.

The Difference between Right and Wrong: Accuracy of Older and Younger Adults' Story Recall

Sharing stories is an important social activity in everyday life. This study used fine-grained content analysis to investigate the accuracy of recall of two central story elements: the gist and detail of socially-relevant stories. Younger (M age = 28.06) and older (M age = 75.03) American men and women (N = 63) recalled fictional stories that were coded for (i) accuracy of overall gist and specific gist categories and (ii) accuracy of overall detail and specific detail categories. Findings showed no age group differences in accuracy of overall gist or detail, but differences emerged for specific categories. Older adults more accurately recalled the gist of when the event occurred whereas younger adults more accurately recalled the gist of why the event occurred. These differences were related to episodic memory ability and education. For accuracy in recalling details, there were some age differences, but gender differences were more robust. Overall, women remembered details of these social stories more accurately than men, particularly time and perceptual details. Women were also more likely to accurately remember the gist of when the event occurred. The discussion focuses on how accurate recall of socially-relevant stories is not clearly age-dependent but is related to person characteristics such as gender and episodic memory ability/education.

On the particular vulnerability of face recognition to aging: a review of three hypotheses

Age-related face recognition deficits are characterized by high false alarms to unfamiliar faces, are not as pronounced for other complex stimuli, and are only partially related to general age-related impairments in cognition. This paper reviews some of the underlying processes likely to be implicated in theses deficits by focusing on areas where contradictions abound as a means to highlight avenues for future research. Research pertaining to the three following hypotheses is presented: (i) perceptual deterioration, (ii) encoding of configural information, and (iii) difficulties in recollecting contextual information. The evidence surveyed provides support for the idea that all three factors are likely to contribute, under certain conditions, to the deficits in face recognition seen in older adults. We discuss how these different factors might interact in the context of a generic framework of the different stages implicated in face recognition. Several suggestions for future investigations are outlined.

The impact of beliefs about face recognition ability on memory retrieval processes in young and older adults

This study examined whether beliefs about face recognition ability differentially influence memory retrieval in older compared to young adults. Participants evaluated their ability to recognise faces and were also given information about their ability to perceive and recognise faces. The information was ostensibly based on an objective measure of their ability, but in actuality, participants had been randomly assigned the information they received (high ability, low ability or no information control). Following this information, face recognition accuracy for a set of previously studied faces was measured using a remember-know memory paradigm. Older adults rated their ability to recognise faces as poorer compared to young adults. Additionally, negative information about face recognition ability improved only older adults' ability to recognise a previously seen face. Older adults were also found to engage in more familiarity than item-specific processing than young adults, but information about their face recognition ability did not affect face processing style. The role that older adults' memory beliefs have in the meta-cognitive strategies they employ is discussed.

Developmental Improvement and Age-Related Decline in Unfamiliar Face Matching

Age-related changes have been documented widely in studies of face recognition and eyewitness identification. However, it is not clear whether these changes arise from general developmental differences in memory or occur specifically during the perceptual processing of faces. We report two experiments to track such perceptual changes using a 1-in-10 (experiment 1) and 1-in-1 (experiment 2) matching task for unfamiliar faces. Both experiments showed improvements in face matching during childhood and adult-like accuracy levels by adolescence. In addition, face-matching performance declined in adults of the age of 65 years. These findings indicate that developmental improvements and aging-related differences in face processing arise from changes in the perceptual encoding of faces. A clear face inversion effect was also present in all age groups. This indicates that those age-related changes in face matching reflect a quantitative effect, whereby typical face processes are engaged but do not operate at the best-possible level. These data suggest that part of the problem of eyewitness identification in children and elderly persons might reflect impairments in the perceptual processing of unfamiliar faces.

Holistic face perception in young and older adults: effects of feedback and attentional demand

Evidence exists for age-related decline in face cognition ability. However, the extents to which attentional demand and flexibility to adapt viewing strategies contribute to age-related decline in face cognition tests is poorly understood. Here, we studied holistic face perception in older (age range 65–78 years, mean age 69.9) and young adults (age range 20–32 years, mean age 23.1) using the complete design for a sequential study-test composite face task (Richler et al., 2008b). Attentional demand was varied using trials that required participants to attend to both face halves and to redirect attention to one face half during the test (high attentional demand), and trials that allowed participants to keep a pre-adjusted focus (low attentional demand). We also varied viewing time and provided trial-by-trial feedback or no feedback. We observed strong composite effects, which were larger for the elderly in all conditions, independent of viewing time. Composite effects were smaller for low attentional demand, and larger for high attentional demand. No age-related differences were found in this respect. Feedback also reduced the composite effects in both age groups. Young adults could benefit from feedback in conditions with low and high attentional demands. Older adults performed better with feedback only in trials with low attentional demand. When attentional demand was high, older adults could no longer use the feedback signal, and performed worse with feedback than without. These findings suggest that older adults tend to use a global focus for faces, albeit piecemeal analysis is required for the task, and have difficulties adapting their viewing strategies when task demands are high. These results are consistent with the idea that elderly rely more on holistic strategies as a means to reduce perceptual and cognitive load when processing resources are limited (Konar et al., 2013).

Effects of aging on face identification and holistic face processing

Several studies have shown that face identification accuracy is lower in older than younger adults. This effect of aging might be due to age differences in holistic processing, which is thought to be an important component of human face processing. Currently, however, there is conflicting evidence as to whether holistic face processing is impaired in older adults. The current study therefore re-examined this issue by measuring response accuracy in a 1-of-4 face identification task and the composite face effect (CFE), a common index of holistic processing, in older adults. Consistent with previous reports, we found that face identification accuracy was lower in older adults than in younger adults tested in the same task. We also found a significant CFE in older adults that was similar in magnitude to the CFE measured in younger subjects with the same task. Finally, we found that there was a significant positive correlation between the CFE and face identification accuracy. This last result differs from the results obtained in a previous study that used the same tasks and which found no evidence of an association between the CFE and face identification accuracy in younger adults. Furthermore, the age difference was found with subtraction-, regression-, and ratio-based estimates of the CFE. The current findings are consistent with previous claims that older adults rely more heavily on holistic processing to identify objects in conditions of limited processing resources.

Age differences in eyewitness memory for a realistic event

OBJECTIVES

To better understand the effects of misinformation on eyewitnesses of different ages, older and younger adults experienced an event under intentional and incidental learning conditions in a naturalistic experiment using multiple memory tests.

METHOD

Following exposure to the event, which was a brief interruption of a group testing session, participants completed several memory tests. For half of the participants, misinformation was embedded in the first cued recall test. On subsequent free recall and cued recall tests, basic scores and misinformation-based memory errors were examined.

RESULTS

As expected, younger adults had higher recall scores than older adults. Older and younger adults made the same number of misinformation errors in free recall and in cued recall with intentional learning. However, in the incidental condition, younger adults made more misinformation errors likely due to the information processing strategies they employed after incidental learning.

DISCUSSION

Misinformation effects were quite strong, even with a realistic scene and intentional learning. Older adult suggestibility was no worse than that of younger adults. When misinformation was combined with incidental learning, younger adults may have used strategic processing to encode misinformation to their detriment.

Age-related changes in processing faces from detection to identification: ERP evidence

We examined the ability of people 70 to 90 years old to apply global, configural, and featural face-processing strategies. In addition we investigated age-related changes in the ability to categorize faces at basic, subordinate, and individual levels. Using the N170 potential as index of early face processing and the P300 component as index of categorical decision making and effort, we found significant age-related perceptual changes which slowed and somewhat impaired face processing. Specifically, older participants had problems integrating face features into global structures, demonstrating enhanced dependence on distal global information. They did not apply configural computations by default while processing faces which suggests that, unless identification is required, they process faces only at a basic level. These perceptual changes could be the cause for slower and less accurate subordinate categorization, particularly when it is based on details. At the neural levels face processing was not right-lateralized, reflecting excessive involvement of the left hemisphere in perception leading to a more general reduction of interhemispheric asymmetry. In addition we found excessive but nonselective activation of frontal regions adding support to the view that executive control and particularly inhibition of irrelevant input are reduced in the elderly.

Face Processing Changes in Normal Aging Revealed by fMRI Adaptation

We investigated the neural correlates of facial processing changes in healthy aging using fMRI and an adaptation paradigm. In the scanner, participants were successively presented with faces that varied in identity, viewpoint, both, or neither and performed a head size detection task independent of identity or viewpoint. In right fusiform face area (FFA), older adults failed to show adaptation to the same face repeatedly presented in the same view, which elicited the most adaptation in young adults. We also performed a multivariate analysis to examine correlations between whole-brain activation patterns and behavioral performance in a face-matching task tested outside the scanner. Despite poor neural adaptation in right FFA, high-performing older adults engaged the same face-processing network as high-performing young adults across conditions, except the one presenting a same facial identity across different viewpoints. Low-performing older adults used this network to a lesser extent. Additionally, high-performing older adults uniquely recruited a set of areas related to better performance across all conditions, indicating age-specific involvement of this added network. This network did not include the core ventral face-processing areas but involved the left inferior occipital gyrus, frontal, and parietal regions. Although our adaptation results show that the neuronal representations of the core face-preferring areas become less selective with age, our multivariate analysis indicates that older adults utilize a distinct network of regions associated with better face matching performance, suggesting that engaging this network may compensate for deficiencies in ventral face processing regions.

The effects of prior exposure on face processing in younger and older adults

Older adults differ from their younger counterparts in the way they view faces. We assessed whether older adults can use past experience to mitigate these typical face-processing differences; that is, we examined whether there are age-related differences in the use of memory to support current processing. Eye movements of older and younger adults were monitored as they viewed faces that varied in the type/amount of prior exposure. Prior exposure was manipulated by including famous and novel faces, and by presenting faces up to five times. We expected that older adults may have difficulty quickly establishing new representations to aid in the processing of recently presented faces, but would be able to invoke face representations that have been stored in memory long ago to aid in the processing of famous faces. Indeed, younger adults displayed effects of recent exposure with a decrease in the total fixations to the faces and a gradual increase in the proportion of fixations to the eyes. These effects of recent exposure were largely absent in older adults. In contrast, the effect of fame, revealed by a subtle increase in fixations to the inner features of famous compared to non-famous faces, was similar for younger and older adults. Our results suggest that older adults’ current processing can benefit from lifetime experience, however the full benefit of recent experience on face processing is not realized in older adults.

Effects of aging on hippocampal and anterior temporal activations during successful retrieval of memory for face-name associations

Memory for face-name associations is an important type of memory in our daily lives, and often deteriorates in older adults. Although difficulty retrieving face-name associations is often apparent in the elderly, there is little neuroscientific evidence of age-related decline in this memory. The current fMRI study investigated differences in brain activations between healthy young and older adults during the successful retrieval of people's names (N) and job titles (J) associated with faces. During encoding, participants viewed unfamiliar faces, each paired with a job title and name. During retrieval, each learned face was presented with two job titles or two names, and participants were required to choose the correct job title or name. Retrieval success activity (RSA) was identified by comparing retrieval-phase activity for hits versus misses in N and J, and the RSAs in each task were compared between young and older adults. The study yielded three main findings. First, the hippocampus showed significant RSA in both tasks of N and J, and the activity was greater for young compared to older subjects. Second, the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) showed greater RSA in N than in J, but there was no age difference in the activity in this region. Third, functional connectivity between hippocampal and ATL activities in both retrieval tasks was higher for young than for older adults. Taken together, age-related differences in hippocampal activities and hippocampus-ATL connectivity could contribute to age-related decline in relational memory and to complaints of poor retrieval of people's names by older adults.

KIBRA and CLSTN2 polymorphisms exert interactive effects on human episodic memory

Individual differences in episodic memory are highly heritable. Several studies have linked a polymorphism in the gene encoding the KIBRA protein to episodic memory performance. Results regarding CLSTN2, the gene encoding the synaptic protein calsyntenin 2, have been less consistent, possibly pointing to interactions with other genes. Given that both KIBRA and CLSTN2 are expressed in the medial temporal lobe and have been linked to synaptic plasticity, we investigated whether KIBRA and CLSTN2 interactively modulate episodic memory performance (n=383). We replicated the beneficial effect of the KIBRA T-allele on episodic memory, and discovered that this effect increases with the associative demands of the memory task. Importantly, the memory-enhancing effect of the KIBRA T-allele was boosted by the presence of the CLSTN2 C-allele, which positively affected memory performance in some previous studies. In contrast, the presence of CLSTN2 C-allele led to reduced performance in subjects homozygous for the KIBRA C-allele. Overall, these findings suggest that KIBRA and CLSTN2 interactively modulate episodic memory performance, and underscore the need for delineating the interactive effects of multiple genes on brain and behavior.

When false recognition is out of control: the case of facial conjunctions

In three experiments, a dual-process approach to face recognition memory is examined, with a specific focus on the idea that a recollection process can be used to retrieve configural information of a studied face. Subjects could avoid, with confidence, a recognition error to conjunction lure faces (each a reconfiguration of features from separate studied faces) or feature lure faces (each based on a set of old features and a set of new features) by recalling a studied configuration. In Experiment 1, study repetition (one vs. eight presentations) was manipulated, and in Experiments 2 and 3, retention interval over a short number of trials (0-20) was manipulated. Different measures converged on the conclusion that subjects were unable to use a recollection process to retrieve configural information in an effort to temper recognition errors for conjunction or feature lure faces. A single process, familiarity, appears to be the sole process underlying recognition of conjunction and feature faces, and familiarity contributes, perhaps in whole, to discrimination of old from conjunction faces.

How variations in distance affect eyewitness reports and identification accuracy

Witnesses observe crimes at various distances and the courts have to interpret their testimony given the likely quality of witnesses' views of events. We examined how accurately witnesses judged the distance between themselves and a target person, and how distance affected description accuracy, choosing behavior, and identification test accuracy. Over 1,300 participants were approached during normal daily activities, and asked to observe a target person at one of a number of possible distances. Under a Perception, Immediate Memory, or Delayed Memory condition, witnesses provided a brief description of the target, estimated the distance to the target, and then examined a 6-person target-present or target-absent lineup to see if they could identify the target. Errors in distance judgments were often substantial. Description accuracy was mediocre and did not vary systematically with distance. Identification choosing rates were not affected by distance, but decision accuracy declined with distance. Contrary to previous research, a 15-m viewing distance was not critical for discriminating accurate from inaccurate decisions.

A decrease in conjunction error rates across lags on a continuous recognition task: A robust pattern

In four experiments, the lag retention interval from parent words (e.g., blackmail, jailbird) to a conjunction word ( blackbird) was manipulated in a continuous recognition task. Alterations to the basic procedure of Jones and Atchley (2002) were employed in Experiments 1 and 2 to bolster recollection to reject conjunction lures, yet conjunction error rates still decreased across lags of 1 to 20 words. Experiment 3 and a multiexperiment analysis examined the increments of forgetting in familiarity across lags of 1–20 words. Finally, in Experiment 4, participants attempted to identify conjunction probes as “old”, and the data were contrasted with those from a previous experiment (Jones & Atchley, 2002, Exp. 1), in which participants attempted not to identify conjunction probes as “old”. In support of earlier findings, the decrease in familiarity across lags of 1–20 words appears robust, with a constant level of weak recollection occurring for parent words.

Recognition memory measures yield disproportionate effects of aging on learning face-name associations

No previous research has tested whether the specific age-related deficit in learning face-name associations that has been identified using recall tasks also occurs for recognition memory measures. Young and older participants saw pictures of unfamiliar people with a name and an occupation for each person, and were tested on a matching (in Experiment 1) or multiple-choice (in Experiment 2) recognition memory test. For both recognition measures, the pattern of effects was the same as that obtained using a recall measure: More face-occupation associations were remembered than face-name associations, young adults remembered more associated information than older adults overall, and older adults had disproportionately poorer memory for face-name associations. Findings implicate age-related difficulty in forming and retrieving the association between the face and the name as the primary cause of obtained deficits in previous name learning studies.

Regularities in eyewitness identification

What do eyewitness identification experiments typically show? We address this question through a meta-analysis of 94 comparisons between target-present and target-absent lineups. The analyses showed that: (a) correct identifications and correct-nonidentifications were uncorrelated, (b) suspect identifications were more diagnostic with respect to the suspect's guilt or innocence than any other response, (c) nonidentifications were diagnostic of the suspect's innocence, (d) the diagnosticity of foil identifications depended on lineup composition, and (e) don't know responses were nondiagnostic with respect to guilt or innocence. Results of diagnosticity analyses for simultaneous and sequential lineups varied for full-sample versus direct-comparison analyses. Diagnosticity patterns also varied as a function of lineup composition. Theoretical, forensic, and legal implications are discussed.

Feature and conjunction effects in recognition memory: Toward specifying familiarity for compound words

In three experiments, we evaluated potential sources of familiarity in the production of feature and conjunction errors with both word (Experiments 1 and 3) and nonword (Experiment 2) stimuli and related this work to various dual-process models of memory. The contributions of letter, syllable, lexical morpheme, and conceptual information were considered. Lexical morpheme information was consistently more potent than syllable information in leading to feature and conjunction errors across Experiments 1 and 2, and a word length explanation did not account for this consistent finding. In addition, there was no impact of conceptual information on these errors (Experiments 1-3). The results support a familiarity-based interpretation of feature and conjunction errors and a lexical morpheme basis for the familiarity in compound words. In order to be more comprehensive, memory models may need to account for a lexical morpheme source of familiarity.

Eyewitness Evidence: Improving Its Probative Value

The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitnesses to determine the facts surrounding criminal events. Eyewitnesses may identify culprits, recall conversations, or remember other details. An eyewitness who has no motive to lie is a powerful form of evidence for jurors, especially if the eyewitness appears to be highly confident about his or her recollection. In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, the eyewitness's account is generally accepted by police, prosecutors, judges, and juries. However, the faith the legal system places in eyewitnesses has been shaken recently by the advent of forensic DNA testing. Given the right set of circumstances, forensic DNA testing can prove that a person who was convicted of a crime is, in fact, innocent. Analyses of DNA exoneration cases since 1992 reveal that mistaken eyewitness identification was involved in the vast majority of these convictions, accounting for more convictions of innocent people than all other factors combined. We review the latest figures on these DNA exonerations and explain why these cases can only be a small fraction of the mistaken identifications that are occurring. Decades before the advent of forensic DNA testing, psychologists were questioning the validity of eyewitness reports. Hugo Münsterberg's writings in the early part of the 20th century made a strong case for the involvement of psychological science in helping the legal system understand the vagaries of eyewitness testimony. But it was not until the mid- to late 1970s that psychologists began to conduct programmatic experiments aimed at understanding the extent of error and the variables that govern error when eyewitnesses give accounts of crimes they have witnessed. Many of the experiments conducted in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s resulted in articles by psychologists that contained strong warnings to the legal system that eyewitness evidence was being overvalued by the justice system in the sense that its impact on triers of fact (e.g., juries) exceeded its probative (legal-proof) value. Another message of the research was that the validity of eyewitness reports depends a great deal on the procedures that are used to obtain those reports and that the legal system was not using the best procedures. Although defense attorneys seized on this nascent research as a tool for the defense, it was largely ignored or ridiculed by prosecutors, judges, and police until the mid 1990s, when forensic DNA testing began to uncover cases of convictions of innocent persons on the basis of mistaken eyewitness accounts. Recently, a number of jurisdictions in the United States have implemented procedural reforms based on psychological research, but psychological science has yet to have its fullest possible influence on how the justice system collects and interprets eyewitness evidence. The psychological processes leading to eyewitness error represent a confluence of memory and social-influence variables that interact in complex ways. These processes lend themselves to study using experimental methods. Psychological science is in a strong position to help the criminal justice system understand eyewitness accounts of criminal events and improve their accuracy. A subset of the variables that affect eyewitness accuracy fall into what researchers call system variables, which are variables that the criminal justice system has control over, such as how eyewitnesses are instructed before they view a lineup and methods of interviewing eyewitnesses. We review a number of system variables and describe how psychological scientists have translated them into procedures that can improve the probative value of eyewitness accounts. We also review estimator variables, variables that affect eyewitness accuracy but over which the system has no control, such as cross-race versus within-race identifications. We describe some concerns regarding external validity and generalization that naturally arise when moving from the laboratory to the real world. These include issues of base rates, multicollinearity, selection effects, subject populations, and psychological realism. For each of these concerns, we briefly note ways in which both theory and field data help make the case for generalization.