ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews a number of demographic variables that have been shown to be associated with eyewitness accuracy and suggestibility. It focuses on a study that used a science museum as the setting for testing the eyewitness abilities of diverse individuals who visited the museum. The chapter also reviews the cognitive and personality variables. It explores the findings of an unpublished doctoral dissertation that examined fourteen cognitive and personality variables that might be associated with eyewitness accuracy and suggestibility. In order to formulate reasonable hypotheses about which individual variables can account for demographic differences in eyewitness memory, it is necessary to develop an understanding of what general cognitive and personality variables are important. Consideration of the distinction between misinformation acceptance and retrieval may help to account for some puzzling findings in a dissertation thesis that adds new twists to the picture of the cognitive and personality characteristics.
