Child witness expressions of certainty are informative.

Winsor, Alice; Flowe, Heather D.; Seale-Carlisle, Travis M.; Killeen, Isabella; Hett, Danielle; Jores, Theo; Ingham, Madeleine; Lee, Byron P.; Stevens, Laura; Colloff, Melissa F.

doi:10.1037/xge0001049

Cited by 8 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…Positive confidence-accuracy relations within each age group were obtained both immediately after encoding when items could still be maintained within capacity-constrained WM, and following a much longer sequence of events, when information had to be retrieved from LTM. Our results replicate those of earlier findings in childhood development (Winsor et al, 2021), young adulthood (Wixted & Wells, 2017), and older adulthood (Colloff et al, 2017) documenting positive confidence-accuracy relations in LTM, albeit with variations in the strength of these relations across the lifespan (cf., Fandakova et al, 2013;Shing et al, 2009). Extending on these earlier studies, we found that similar confidence-accuracy relations arise in WM, the "gateway" through which new LTMs are formed (Forsberg, Guitard, Adams, et al, 2022;Forsberg, Guitard, & Cowan, 2021;Forsberg, Guitard, Greene, et al, 2022;Forsberg et al, 2023;Fukuda & Vogel, 2019;cf., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968;Cowan, 1988Cowan, , 2019Cowan et al, 2024).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Because the LTM tests of the present study pertain to episodic memories (i.e., remembering specific items encountered in a specific time and place; Tulving, 1983), we hypothesized that older adults would be more prone to highconfidence LTM recognition errors than younger adults. A similar tendency toward high-confidence LTM errors may also be found among young children in the present study, particularly those aged 7 and younger (e.g., Winsor et al, 2021) but potentially also for children up to age 10 (e.g., Brewer & Day, 2005;Howie & Roebers, 2007). It is conceivable that these age-related high-confidence memory errors may not appear in tests of WM, where young children or older adults may be better able to access their specific representations of recently encoded information (e.g., .…”

Section: Hypotheses For Age Differences In the Confidence-accuracy Ma...supporting

confidence: 88%

“…As a result, the presence of an age difference at lowconfidence levels (e.g., young adults being more accurate than children or older adults) would provide misleading information as to whether there are age-related differences in confidence-accuracy calibration. 3 Although studies of LTM have documented positive confidenceaccuracy relations across the lifespan (e.g., Fandakova et al, 2013), young children (e.g., Winsor et al, 2021) and older adults (e.g., Dodson et al, 2007) are more prone to high-confidence memory errors than adolescents and young adults. Among older adults, these high-confidence LTM errors are characterized by overconfidence in erroneous recognition responses to new, unstudied information, particularly on tests of episodic rather than semantic content (i.e., tests requiring the retrieval of a specific prior episode; Dodson, 2017;Dodson et al, 2007;.…”

Section: Hypotheses For Age Differences In the Confidence-accuracy Ma...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prior studies of LTM indicate that children and adolescents(Winsor et al, 2021), young adults(Wixted & Wells, 2017), and older adults(Colloff et al, 2017) all tend to be more accurate in their LTM recognition responses when they express higher compared to lower confidence (cf.,Fandakova et al, 2013;Shing et al, 2009). Thus, we hypothesized that there would be a positive confidence-accuracy relation in tests of LTM within each age group of the present study.In tests of WM, among young adults, we hypothesized that there would be a positive confidence-accuracy relation as well, in line LIFESPAN CONFIDENCE-ACCURACY WM-LTM…”

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confidence: 99%

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A lifespan study of the confidence–accuracy relation in working memory and episodic long-term memory.

Greene,

Forsberg,

Guitard

et al. 2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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The relation between an individual's memory accuracy and reported confidence in their memories can indicate self-awareness of memory strengths and weaknesses. We provide a lifespan perspective on this confidence-accuracy relation, based on two previously published experiments with 320 participants, including children aged 6-13, young adults aged 18-27, and older adults aged 65-77, across tests of working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM). Participants studied visual items in arrays of varying set sizes and completed item recognition tests featuring 6-point confidence ratings either immediately after studying each array (WM tests) or following a long period of study events (LTM tests). Confidence-accuracy characteristic analyses showed that accuracy improved with increasing confidence for all age groups and in both WM and LTM tests. These findings reflect a universal ability across the lifespan to use awareness of the strengths and limitations of one's memories to adjust reported confidence. Despite this age invariance in the confidence-accuracy relation, however, young children were more prone to high-confidence memory errors than other groups in tests of WM, whereas older adults were more susceptible to high-confidence false alarms in tests of LTM. Thus, although participants of all ages can assess when their memories are weaker or stronger, individuals with generally weaker memories are less adept at this confidence-accuracy calibration. Findings also speak to potential different sources of high-confidence memory errors for young children and older adults, relative to young adults. Public Significance StatementOur ability to accurately evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of our memories is critical to how we make decisions and can influence how much confidence other people can place in our reported experiences, as in eyewitness testimony. The present study reveals a strikingly universal ability of individuals from young childhood to older adulthood in calibrating their confidence in their memory with their observed accuracy in recognition. However, young children and older adults are more susceptible to high-confidence memory errors, but during different phases of memory retention, with young children's high-confidence errors arising in working memory and those of older adults appearing mostly in longterm memory. These findings suggest that different mechanisms underlie why young children and older adults generally have poorer memory than adolescents and young adults.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Hypotheses For Age Differences In the Confidence-accuracy Ma...supporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Hypotheses For Age Differences In the Confidence-accuracy Ma...mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A lifespan study of the confidence–accuracy relation in working memory and episodic long-term memory.

Greene,

Forsberg,

Guitard

et al. 2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Confidence ratings were used to further partition the data into three confidence subgroups: low = 0%-59%, moderate = 60%-89%, and high = 90%-100%. Most studies used a scale from 0% to 100% for confidence ratings, but one used a 5-point scale (Winsor et al, 2021), which we transformed to a scale from 0% to 100%.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of eyewitness error rates in fair and biased lineups.

Fitzgerald

Tredoux

Juncu

2023

Law and Human Behavior

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Objective: The risk of mistaken identification for innocent suspects in lineups can be estimated by correcting the overall error rate by the number of people in the lineup. We compared this nominal size correction to a new effective size correction, which adjusts the error rate for the number of plausible lineup members. Hypotheses: We hypothesized that (a) increasing lineup bias would increase misidentifications of a designated innocent suspect; (b) with the effective size correction, increasing lineup bias would also increase the estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications; and (c) with the nominal size correction, lineup bias would have no effect on the estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications. Method: In a reanalysis of previous literature, we obtained 10 data sets from Open Science Framework. In three new experiments (Ns = 686, 405, and 1,531, respectively), participants observed a staged crime and completed a fair or biased lineup. Results: In the reanalysis of previous literature, less than four of six lineup members were identified frequently enough to be classified as plausible, M = 3.78, 95% confidence interval [CI: 2.20, 5.36]. In the new experiments, increasing lineup bias increased mistaken identifications of a designated innocent suspect, odds ratio (OR) = 5.50, 95% CI [2.77, 10.95] and also increased the effective size-corrected estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications, OR = 3.04, 95% CI [2.13, 4.33]. With the nominal size correction, lineup bias had no effect on the estimate of innocent-suspect misidentifications, OR = 0.84, 95% CI [0.60, 1.18]. Conclusions: Most lineups include a combination of plausible and implausible lineup members. Contrary to the nominal size correction, which ignores implausible lineup members, the effective size correction is sensitive to implausible lineup members and accounts for lineup bias when estimating the risk of innocent suspect misidentifications. Public Significance StatementAn increasingly common method of estimating the risk of innocent suspect misidentifications in fair lineups is to divide the overall error rate by the number of people in the lineup. An alternative method is to estimate the risk of innocent suspect misidentifications, given the fairness of the lineups that were tested. Neither method applies to all criminal investigations, and we recommend reporting both methods when estimating the risk of innocent suspect misidentifications in police lineups.

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The role of experimenter familiarity in children’s eyewitness identification

Calderwood

Ballantyne

Slee

2023

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law

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Child eyewitnesses show a high false identification rate on target-absent (TA) lineups despite good performance on target-present (TP) lineups. One explanation is that children feel a social pressure to choose when presented with a TA lineup. We investigated whether experimenter familiarity would reduce social pressure and improve accuracy on TA lineups. Children (5–7 years, N = 120) watched a short video of a staged theft; 1–2 days later they completed a TP or TA lineup with a familiar or unfamiliar experimenter. Experimenter familiarity had an impact on lineup response in TA lineups only, with more correct ‘not there’ and fewer ‘not sure’ responses when the children were familiar with the experimenter. The results provide further evidence to support the social aspect of eyewitness identification decisions in children and provide a possible strategy to improve identification accuracy for those working with children in the criminal justice system.

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Child witness expressions of certainty are informative.

Cited by 8 publications

References 83 publications

A lifespan study of the confidence–accuracy relation in working memory and episodic long-term memory.

A lifespan study of the confidence–accuracy relation in working memory and episodic long-term memory.

Estimation of eyewitness error rates in fair and biased lineups.

The role of experimenter familiarity in children’s eyewitness identification

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