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A University of Virginia study suggests that eyewitness reliability is linked to the age of the eyewitness. According to the study, older eyewitnesses are more likely to be mistaken in recollecting details and are also more likely to be certain about their erroneous recollections.

The researchers said they found through a series of experiments that when younger and older adults were matched on their overall memory for experienced  events, both groups showed comparable rates of suggestibility errors in which they claimed to have seen events in a video that had been suggested in a subsequent questionnaire. However, older adults were “alarmingly” likely to commit these suggestibility errors when they were most confident about the correctness of their response, the press release said. Younger people were more likely to commit these errors when they were uncertain about the accuracy of their response, it said.

Previous studies by other investigators have shown that older adults are more likely than younger people to “remember” events that did not occur, and to misremember events that did occur. The U.Va. study further suggest that this occurs because older adults are more inclined to miscombine details of events, which results in a high degree of confidence that they are remembering these details accurately.

Here is a press release regarding the study. I have been unable to locate a copy of the study. If it is available online for free, please leave a comment with the link and I will add it to the post.