Background:

• Johnson’s source monitoring framework. Remember, older adults have been found in numerous studies to be particularly bad at source monitoring.
• Loftus’ Misinformation Paradigm. The suggestibility effect has been found with both young and old adults.
• Lindsey and Johnson 91989) found the suggestibility effect for those tested with the standard yes/no recognition test, yet did not find it when using a source-monitoring test.
• The argument is this: the source-monitoring test reduces the suggestibility effect because it requires the individual to use a more stringent decision criteria than does the yes/no familiarity test.
• Will a source-monitoring test reduce the suggestibility effect in older adults as well as young adults as Lindsay and Johnson (1989) found?
• Multhaup (1995) found empirical support that source monitoring tests will reduce source misattribution.

• Older adults would show a suggestibility effect when tested with a yes/no recognition test, but would not when tested with the source-monitoring test.

• Data from 128 elderly adults.
• Broken up into 4 groups: control-source test; control-recognition test; misled –source test; misled-recognition test.
• Procedure:
• View a slide for 20 seconds.
• Read a narrative of the scene ( half were misleading)
• Write a summary of slide scene
• Memory test: either recognition or source test.

Meaning: The authors believe that the way people are tested can and does affect how likely the suggestibility effect is to occur. They remind that this does not mean that a source-monitoring test will reduce all errors. But, the use of the test may cause an individual to go beyond familiarity and cause an evaluation of the characteristics of memory.