Enhancing older adults’ eyewitness memory for present and future events with the Self-administered Interview.

Older adults’ memory reports are often less complete and accurate than those by younger adults. The current study assessed the suitability of the Self-Administered Interview (SAI) as retrieval support for older eyewitnesses, and examines whether experience with the SAI leads to improved performance on subsequent events where the SAI is not used. Participants recalled an event with the SAI or free recall instructions. After 1-week, all participants watched a second event and freely recalled its content. SAI participants reported more correct details for the initial event, and a ‘transfer’ of the initial recall advantage to the second event was observed.