A leading researcher at the University of Washington, Elizabeth Loftus, is specialized in the area of memory. She has recently discovered that when an occurrence is recalled it is not always re-created accurately. Loftus’ research revealed that instead, it is a reconstruction of the actual event. Newly collected information in relation to the topic being re-called can interfere with the memory you’re attempting to recall resulting in inaccurate recollection of the experience. If not be newly collected information it could be from other sources, such as the previous times you’ve told it, experiences from a television episode, a movie, or many other factors. You may have even experienced this yourself when you’ve been in the same place with another person for an event but have two un-matching stories of how the story took place and what occurred. This study took place because if memories are believed to be inaccurate then why are things such as eyewitnesses’, in legal proceedings, taken so seriously when their memory can easily be false …show more content…
interpreted and altered. A defendant’s fate may rest in the eyewitnesses’ testimony, so memory reconstructions are very crucial; which is why Loftus’s research in the area of memory has been connected to legal eyewitness testimony. For example, the word the presupposes the occurrence of something that may not have even occurred such as “Did you see a cat?” or “Did you see the cat”, therefore can cause witnesses to add the sighting of a cat to their memories of an event. The research on this subject was interesting in the sense that it applies to encounters and occurrences that happen every day. This research focused on questions containing presuppositions to alter a person’s memory of an event. For example, if a question is asked with a false presupposition it is more likely that the person being asked the question will use the new false information and incorporate it with the memory of the event. In the first experiment, 150 students in small groups saw a video of a five-car chain reaction accidents occurring when a driver runs through a stop sign into ongoing traffic. After the film, all groups were asked 10 questions. While most questions had little significance, half were asked how fast Car A was going when it turned right while the other half was asked how fast Car A was going when it ran the stop sign. They then both were asked if they saw a stop sign for Car A. Out of the group asked about the stop sign the first time, 53% (40 people) answered that they saw a stop sign for Car A, while only 35% (26 people) of the other group reported to see the stop sign. The results were found to be statistically significant. In the second experiment, 40 people were shown a film clip that showed a class ebing disrupted by eight demonstrators. After they viewed the film clip, they each were given a 20 question questionnaire relating to the clip. For half of the people, one of the questions asked was if they leader of the four demonstrators who entered the classroom a male, and the other half of the people were asked if the leader of 12 demonstrators who entered the classroom was a male. All the remaining questions asked after those were identical for both groups. One week after this test, all people from both groups returned to answer another 20 new questions on the film, without viewing it again. One question being, “How many demonstrators did you see entering the classroom?” The group presupposing 12 demonstrators reported see an average of about 8.85, while the group being asked originally about the 4 demonstrators reported an averaged 6.40. These results were also announced significant. This experiment also showed that on average the wording of one questions altered the way people recalled the witnessed event. In the third experiment, the goal was to determine if false presuppositions inherent in questions could cause witnesses to reconstruct their memory of an event inaccurately.
150 university students observed a short video of an accident that involved a white sports car and then answered 10 questions about the content on the video. One question for half of the students asked how fast the car was going when it passed the barn while the other half received a question asking how fast the car was going while traveling along the road. Just like the previous experiment, the students returned a week later with 10 follow-up questions on the video about the accident. The question asked if they saw a barn. Of the students that were asked a question mentioning a barn, 17.3% reported they had seen one. While 2.7% in the no-barn group reported they had seen it. These results for this experiment, as the others, were also statistically
significant. The fourth and final experiment was designed to show results for two goals. First, Loftus wanted to further demonstrate the memory reconstruction effects found in the previous experiment. Secondly, she wanted to test if just the mention of an object might be enough to cause the object to be added to memory. Three groups of 50 people viewed a film shot from the inside of a car that ended with the car colliding with a baby carriage pushed by a male. The three groups then answered questions preceding the film. The first group of the three received 40 “filler” questions along with one asking if they saw a barn in the film. The second group of the three received the same 40 “filler” questions along with a question asking if they saw a station wagon parked in front of the barn. The third and final group was given just the 40 filler questions. A week later, all students returned and answered 20 new questions about the film they had previously seen. Five of the questions were the exact same key questions as asked the week before. So the first group saw the five questions twice. Combined, the overall percentages of the subjects answering “yes” to the direct questions a week later were 29.2% for the false presupposition group, 15.6% for the direct-question group, and 8.4% for the control group. The direct-question group and the false-presupposition group differences were significant. While even though there was a trend to indicate a similar effect of the direct questions over controls, the differences weren’t large enough to reach significance statistically. Applying these results and research to eyewitnesses in criminal investigations, witnesses may unintentionally make false presuppositions as they are interviewed usually more than once. So, while attorneys, judges, and the jury are making assumptions that eyewitnesses’ are accurately re-creating what was witnessed, Loftus reports that what is being remembered often times is a “regenerated image based on the altered memorial representation” (page 571, Smith & Ellsworth, 1987). Elizabeth Loftus’ research continues in the areas of memory reconstruction and eyewitness inaccuracy. Her finding have been reportedly quite accurate and relevant and supported by other researchers in the field. Without doubt within the psychological and legal professions today, eyewitness reports are subject to many sources of error. The reliability of eyewitnesses in judicial proceedings is recently being seriously questioned, thanks to Loftus and others in this body of research.
In chapter 6 of Unfair, Adam Benforado addresses the issues regarding human being’s poor memory and our justice systems outrageous reliability on eye witness testimony. Benforado believes that our real memories are severely obstructed by the human brains limit in perception. Our brains are not able to recall every moment of every day because there is simply no way to process everything we encounter in a day. Although most science supports the idea that our memories are unreliable and biased, most of us humans believe we have good and accurate memory. We also expect other to be able to perform basic memory task with accuracy and consistency, which is why for years, the United States so desperately depended on eye witness testimony to get a conviction. This desperation over the years has left hundreds, possibility thousands of innocent citizens paying for a crime they did not commit. According to the reading, of the first 250 exonerations in the United States, 190 of them happen to have involved mistaken identification’s
In the magic of the mind author Dr. Elizabeth loftus explains how a witness’s perception of an accident or crime is not always correct because people's memories are often imperfect. “Are we aware of our minds distortions of our past experiences? In most cases, the answer is no.” our minds can change the way we remember what we have seen or heard without realizing it uncertain witnesses “often identify the person who best matches recollection
Memory is not reliable; memory can be altered and adjusted. Memory is stored in the brain just like files stored in a cabinet, you store it, save it and then later on retrieve and sometimes even alter and return it. In doing so that changes the original data that was first stored. Over time memory fades and becomes distorted, trauma and other events in life can cause the way we store memory to become faulty. So when focusing on eyewitnesses, sometimes our memory will not relay correct information due to different cues, questioning, and trauma and so forth, which makes eyewitness even harder to rely on. Yet it is still applied in the criminal justice system.
There has been considerable debate worldwide, regarding the accuracy of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system. Particularly, arguments have surrounded wrongful convictions that have resulted from incorrect eyewitness evidence (Areh, 2011; Howitt, 2012; Nelson, Laney, Bowman-Fowler, Knowles, Davis & Loftus, 2011). The purpose of this essay is to consider psychological research about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and its placement in the criminal justice system. Firstly, this essay will define how eyewitnesses and their testimonies are used within the criminal justice system and the current debate surrounding its usage. Secondly, the impact of post-identification feedback will be used to show the affect on the confidence of a witness. Thirdly, studies around gender related differences will show how a witnesses gender can affect memory recall and accuracy. Fourthly, empirical studies will be used to highlight how a psychological experience called change blindness can cause mistakes in eyewitness identification. Finally, the effect of cross-examination will be used to explore the impact on eyewitness accuracy. It will be argued, that eyewitness testimony is not accurate and highly subjective, therefore, the criminal justice system must reduce the impact that eyewitness testimony is allowed to have. Developing better policies and procedures to avoid wrongful convictions by misled judges and jury members can do this.
In the court of law, eyewitnesses are expected to present evidence based upon information they acquired visually. However, due to memory processing, presenting this information accurately is not always possible. This paper will discuss the reliability of eyewitness testimony, its use in a relevant court case, and how the reasonable person standard relates to eyewitness testimony.
Still, at the end of the day, the officers are left with an empty cash register, a frantic victim, fifteen different suspect descriptions and no leads. Why did a room full of witnesses come up with various accounts of the incident? Because, unfortunately, the human memory is fallible and easily manipulated. Everything in daily life is subjective and open to interpretation. The video Eyewitness Testimony: Psychological Aspects, reviews many variables that can affect a person’s ability to recall memories.
Memory has several flaws which affect reliability a person only remembers what they wish to remember we have short term memory and long term most is only remembered for a roughly 15 to 20 seconds or brain store things differently in different places. Remembering a face that is not as clear as one actually viewed, the human mind has a tendency for memories to be constructed so that missing information is supplied from our past or outside sources TV is a big one that makes faulty memories of human beings. Newspaper something we read could be triggered at the time. Other witnesses the person may have heard talking or describing could alter the mind. The human mind uses other from memories to interpret information and can distort the memory of the situation in memory. Even colors are remembered as brighter than they truly are. Maybe eyewitness can get right do you think? How about the criminal procedures they cannot be wrong or could
Minor consequences, might for instance, be confusing where one has placed something, like car keys. Such confusion can result in a simple inconvenience such as, the wasting of time. Although more serious consequence might for instance occur when one’s memory tricks the individual into giving false eyewitness accounts that might be costly to him, or other third parties. As such, it is important to critically analyze the dynamics of false memory formation and highlight methods that could be used to identi...
This essay will discuss context-dependent research on one of the aspects of everyday memory, on eyewitness testimony. It will particularly focus on two directions of eyewitness testimony: cognitive interview and face identification. The discussion will go further on how that research can be applied in real life to facilitate the accuracy of eyewitnesses’ recall and recognition.
A defendant’s guilt is often determined in a single moment of fleeting emotion. A pointed finger, accompanied by the solidifying eyewitness statement “He’s the one!” is enough for a jury to make its final decision in a court case. Although it is understandable, when faced opposite of the individual creating the accusation, to place one’s belief in the accusation made, the credibility of the eyewitness’s account of events are rarely taken into consideration. Psychologists have taken part in research that recognizes the unreliable nature of eyewitness statements used to determine guilt because of the instability of long term memory acquisition and because of this, eyewitness accounts of situations should not be used before a jury in court.
During the identification and prosecution of a suspect, eyewitnesses are of the utmost importance. They provide crucial information that determines the fate of the criminal, whether their memories are true to the event or slightly altered. Many eyewitnesses, being the victims of these crimes, have strong emotions related to the event. It has been found that emotions play a role in the accuracy and completeness of memories, especially in eyewitness testimony (Huston, Clifford, Phillips, & Memon, 2013). When emotions are negative in content, accuracy increases for memory of an event (Storbeck & Clore, 2005; Block, Greenberg, & Goodman, 2009). This finding holds true for all types of eyewitnesses, including children. There is no difference in memory between children and adults for aversive events, suggesting that the child eyewitness is just as capable as the adult eyewitness to give an accurate testimony (Cordon, Melinder, Goodman, & Edelstein, 2012). For my research paper, I will focus on the role of emotion in children’s eyewitness testimony.
Similar studies were done to a different set of college students and they tended to have the same results. After giving as much detail about each memory, the students were interviewed about what they may have written done about what they had remembered. During the last part of the experiment, each of the students were debriefed and asked to guess which memory they believed was false.
In this essay I shall discuss the work and research contributed by Bartlett, and Loftus as to whether accuracy plays a vital role in eyewitness testimony compared to other aspects of memory use. Retrieval failure is an everyday experience for many of us. We also often experience problems with storing new information. This usually occurs because simply the person concerned is not paying attention. Perhaps more importantly memories can become scrambled, in the process of retrieval; as a result the scrambled memory is recalled-along with mistaken details instead of your original memory.
We can imply this finding of false memory in many ways in our lives. We all should note that our memory cannot be trusted 100% and we should not solely rely on our memory when it comes to making critical decisions. Just like the murder trial example used in earlier, when it comes to eye witnessing, the judge should take possible false memory into account when making the final decisions and try to obtain objective evidence along with the memory of the witness.
Eyewitness testimony is especially vulnerable to error when the question is misleading or when there’s a difference in ethnicity. However, using an eyewitness as a source of evidence can be risky and is rarely 100% accurate. This can be proven by the theory of the possibility of false memory formation and the question of whether or not a memory can lie. For instance, a group of students saw the face of a young man with straight hair, then heard a description of the face supposedly written by another witness, one that wrongly mentioned light, curly hair. When they reconstructed the face using a kit of facial features, a third of their reconstructions contained the misleading detail, whereas only 5 percent contained it when curly hair was not mentioned (Page 359). This situation shows how misleading information from other sources can be profoundly altered.