ADULT AGE AND GENDER DIFFERENCES IN EYEWITNESS RECALL IN-FIELD SETTINGS

Six-hundred-fifty-one citizens were stopped in public places and teste d for prompted recall of physical characteristics of a young woman to whom they had spoken for approximately 15 s, 2 min earlier. Recall dif fered as a function of the two targets used on five of eight character istics, but no significant differences were found for either target as a function of the gender or age group of the witnesses. Young adults (18-29 years of age) in general were superior to middle-aged adults (3 0-44), who in turn were superior to older adults (45-65). Women were s ignificantly more accurate than men in accuracy of recall for weight, and for characteristics judged to be more important than less importan t for person memory. Male and female witnesses were equally confident in their recall performance. Young and middle-aged groups were signifi cantly more confident in recall than the oldest group. Significant cor relations were found between confidence and accuracy of recall for men and for women, and for each age group. Women made significantly longe r duration estimates of the encounters with the targets than did men. Men overestimated the duration by a 2:1 ratio, and women overestimated by a 3:1 ratio. No significant correlations were found between accura cy of duration estimates and confidence in reports. The results were i nterpreted in terms of their forensic importance.