False Memories for a Robbery in Young and Older Adults

The aim of the present study was to analyse memory performance in young and older adults based on a robbery scenario. The Study examined free recall and the recognition of actions, people and details, as well as the Remember/Know/Guess judgements that accompanied recognition. Recognition was evaluated both immediately and I week later, although performance was not affected by the retention interval. In the free recall task, the older adults remembered less information than the younger adults but we found no differences between the two with regard to errors. Participants accepted more false actions, thus achieving higher recognition accuracy I-or people and details. They also categorized false alarms for actions more often as remember than as know or guess judgements. This pattern of results was more pronounced in the older adults, suggesting that aging, is an important factor in false memories for events. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.