9515231 Bartlett As the elderly are disproportionately likely to be the victims of certain crimes, the legal system will have to rely more and more on elderly witnesses. There has as yet been little research with respect to the performance of the elderly in this role, and existing research has yielded few solid conclusions. The objective of this research is to examine systematically the performance of the elderly as witnesses. It will (1) investigate the conditions under which the elderly are likely to perform poorly and well; (2) test the rules and procedures within the legal system that may be manipulated to enhance the quality of information obtained from elderly witnesses, (3) evaluate the utility of psychometric measures for distinguishing accurate from inaccurate witnesses, and (4) explore the potential for using the relatively unimpaired "implicit memory" of the elderly to assess the accuracy of their memories or to elicit additional information. Experiments involving simulated crimes and other events will be used to compare the performance of young and elderly subjects in order to answer basic questions about age differences. Research has documented that jurors, attorneys, and others within the legal system tend to assume that the elderly witnesses have difficulty in performing accurately. Our goal is to obtain solid information as to what, if anything, should be considered when dealing with seniors who are witnesses to crimes. %%%% As the elderly are disproportionately likely to be the victims of certain crimes, the legal system will have to rely more and more on elderly witnesses. There has as yet been little research with respect to the performance of the elderly in this role, and existing research has yielded few solid conclusions. The objective of this research is to examine systematically the performance of the elderly as witnesses. It will (1) investigate the conditions under which the elderly are likely to perform poorly and well; (2) test the rules and procedures within th e legal system that may be manipulated to enhance the quality of information obtained from elderly witnesses, (3) evaluate the utility of psychometric measures for distinguishing accurate from inaccurate witnesses, and (4) explore the potential for using the relatively unimpaired "implicit memory" of the elderly to assess the accuracy of their memories or to elicit additional information. Experiments involving simulated crimes and other events will be used to compare the performance of young and elderly subjects in order to answer basic questions about age differences. Research has documented that jurors, attorneys, and others within the legal system tend to assume that the elderly witnesses have difficulty in performing accurately. Our goal is to obtain solid information as to what, if anything, should be considered when dealing with seniors who are witnesses to crimes. ****
