Evaluation of research into age and EWT

Evaluation of research into age and EWT.

• Lack of Validity: Both studies can be critisised for lacking in internal validity. Participants had not witnessed a crime, they knew their response would not have serious concequences for anyone. They did not experience the high anxiety, fear and emotion associated with a real EWT. A real EWT involves all these factors, meaning we have not measured what we set out to measure: the effect of age on EWT. The Artificial setting creates demand characteristics resulting in artificial behaviour this limits how far we can generalise these results to a real life EWT reducing the ecological validity of the study.
• Own Age Bias: Anastasi & Rhodes can explain why many people have poorer performance on tests, it may not be that they have poorer memories but in…