Accuracy and qualities of real and suggested memories: Nonspecific age differences

This study examined adult age differences in the accuracy, confidence ratin gs, and vividness ratings of veridical and suggested memories. After seeing either one or two exposures of a vignette depicting a theft, young adults (M = 19 years) and older adults (M = 73 years) were given misleading inform ation that suggested the presence of particular objects in the episode. Mem ory accuracy was higher for younger adults than for older adults, and the f requency of falsely reporting the presence of suggested objects was greater for older adults than for young adults. Further, levels of confidence and vividness ratings of the perceptual attributes (colors, locations) of false ly recognized items were higher for older adults than for young adults. Bot h young adults and older adults used more perceptual references when descri bing veridical memories than when describing suggested memories. Age differ ences in the suggestibility of memory were attributed to nonspecific or non dissociated memory aging effects.