Aging Eyewitnesses, Perception, and Criminal Justice

Source: Matthew J. Sharps

In our past several posts on The Forensic View, we have dealt with developmental factors related to children and adolescents in the criminal justice system. Today, we begin our completion of this developmental series with a look at perceptual processes in the aging eyewitness.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the beginning of the “aging process” as typically viewed by most people; historically, we usually suggest an age in the mid-sixties. There is some scientific justification for this viewpoint. Adults in this age range and beyond tend to be less accurate than younger people in their memory for the environmental details of crimes, the personal characteristics of perpetrators and others present at the given scenes, and the events themselves (Yarmey, 2001).

On the other hand, younger and older adults tend to provide similar results in the recognition performance of police lineups. Still, older adults may yield more false positives, choosing an innocent “foil” as the perpetrator of a given crime. These factors are not conclusive (Bartlett & Memon, 2007), partly because of methodological differences between studies, and also because of the extraordinary range of individual differences observed in the aging process (Sharps, 2003, 2017); but it still makes sense to examine factors that may distinguish eyewitness performance in older adults. We will begin with perceptual factors.

People lose some auditory acuity with age, especially at higher frequencies. If we use hearing aids, we may compensate; but hearing aid batteries are expensive, and we can also forget to turn them to full volume. If an older adult uses hearing aids, it would be a very good idea to ascertain the status of those devices and their batteries when that person became an “earwitness.”

We also suffer age-related vision changes. Annoying little “floaters” exist in the vitreous humor, tiny discontinuities in the transparent “filling” of our eyeballs. These become more numerous as we age, to the point that, among other factors, we may experience about 1/3 less cross-ocular light transmission in our seventies than we did in our twenties. This assumes special significance when an older adult makes an eyewitness identification at dawn or twilight or wearing sunglasses.

It is essential in any eyewitness situation for the investigator to ascertain light levels and the directions of various light sources from the standpoint of the witness. But there is also the problem of glare, as light reflects and refracts in the floater-rich interior of the elderly eye; in brightly lit situations, in which glare is prevalent, the older eyewitness may also be at a disadvantage. Still, these factors may assume even more significance with the older adult witness.

Eyeglasses may be essential for the aged witness. I have worn very thick glasses from the age of seven and now wear bifocals. However, nobody could realize that fact from casual observation; the line in the middle of my bifocals irritated me beyond redemption, so I switched to progressive lenses, which allow bifocal vision but do not have the line.

Suppose an assailant knocked me down. In that case, I might, given my prone perspective, view them through the bottom part of my lenses, ideal for close vision and reading but effectively useless for identifying my assailant a few feet away. So what? I might report that I saw the assailant. I might even believe that I saw the assailant clearly. Still, if my position, relative to that assailant, meant that I viewed them through the bottom part of my progressive lenses rather than through the upper “distance” part, my identification would be effectively useless.

And without asking specifically about my eyeglasses, an investigator would never know–my glasses don’t look like bifocals.

Many older adults are on fixed incomes, with limited or no insurance. Eyeglasses are expensive. Vision changes are slow and difficult to notice- is your witness to a given crime wearing a correct, current prescription, or one acquired years ago which is now effectively useless? Along with the viewing conditions at a given crime scene, the visual acuity achievable by that witness at that scene is also of great importance. This may be especially true for the aged eyewitness.

Concern for personal appearance may also play a role here. In a case I consulted, an older adult witness was mugged and thrown to the ground as her handbag was taken. She had a brief view, mainly from the back, of her assailant. Yet, she was confident in her later identification of a professional man she observed, literally across a crowded room, in a public setting. She accused him of the crime.

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She had seen neither the assailant nor the accused clearly, as she did not like to wear her glasses or admit that she needed them. She felt the glasses diminished her appearance. Yet, even without her glasses, she was sure of her identification.

She had the wrong man. In the course of the investigation, we eventually learned of her rather well-concealed visual impairments. Still, if the accused had not proven that he was in a business meeting at his firm with many witnesses, I guess that he would have been convicted and would probably still be in prison at the time of the mugging.

Glasses are important. So, by the way, are contact lenses. It is an excellent idea for any detective or investigative psychologist to inquire into these issues in any given case. Still, these factors may be essential in cases involving older witnesses, who are simply more likely to need these visual aids.

These are perceptual factors, but cognitive factors influence older eyewitnesses as well. In our next Forensic View, we will take up the consequences of these critical cognitive issues. We will examine some potential solutions to these problems in the rapidly changing world of the criminal justice system.