Conformity Of Memory Analysis

Eyewitness testimony is generally seen as reliable, but as of lately research has found psychological factors that affect one’s testimony. They are anxiety/stress, reconstructive memory, and leading questions. A study was conducted on the impact of anxiety and life stress upon eyewitness testimony; subjects completed self-reports, an eyewitness task, and a self-preoccupation scale to determine the relationship. Results showed that anxiety and preoccupation limits the eyewitness’s ability to perform; a highly anxious individual may miss important cues that are task-relevant (Seigel & Loftus 1978). Other cognitive processes like perception, imagination, and semantic memory influence reconstructive memory the act of remembering. Bartlett’s theory of reconstructive memory is understood that an eyewitness testimony is influenced by what is learned or cultural norms. We store information in a way that makes the most sense to us, organizing information into schemas, mental units of knowledge that correspond to people, objects, or situations that are close to us (Wagoner 2013). When in a police interrogation, leading questions can provide misinformation that causes the witness to question everything they saw and whether or not they are saying the right thing. A study was conducted on a number of subjects that saw a complex and fast moving event. They immediately after were asked questions that suggested information that was necessarily correct due to the wording of the question (Loftus

Eyewitness testimonies are based on a person’s ability to recall what took place accurately. Memory research has proven that a person’s memory is not a recording but it is reconstructive. Loftus and Palmer’s study set out to prove that the memory could be reconstructed through the use of language.

In the late 19th-century research on eyewitness, testimony memory began, psychologists had been studying memory, and the findings became useful for forensic psychology and law. A central issue with studying eyewitness memory and testimony is the ecological validity of lab studies. There are relatively few ‘real world’ eyewitness memory studies, and that causes problems for determining the generalizability of findings in eyewitness memory. Coined by Wells (1978) estimator variables are present at the time of a crime and cannot be changed (i.e. witness characteristics and the type of offence) and system variables are factors that can be manipulated to affect eyewitness accuracy (i.e. line-up procedures and interview types). The system variables

There are many factors to consider when psychologists and scientists are trying to figure out reliability of eyewitness testimony. The ability to recall or

Eyewitness Identification may be more reliable than we believe, if they are handled and assessed correctly. Eyewitness testimonies are often used by law enforcement officers to identify suspects and play a huge role in getting convictions. If witnesses identify the wrong person, an innocent man could be punished for something they had no involvement in. There are many theories to explain why witnesses may identify the wrong person as the perpetrator of a crime. The different ways we retrieve memories affects what we remember. Other theories have to deal with how lineups or photo arrays are displayed to the witness and the effect they have on the result. All of the different theories of how our memories can be influenced, cause people to argue

The article, When I Witnesses Talk, covers the issue of eyewitness testimonies and their reliability with memory conformity. Often when two people experience the same event they both have very different recollections of the occurrence. One event within the journal article incorporates the murder of Jill Dando, within this investigation there was a lineup where 16 witnesses were asked to identify the suspect, where only 1 of the 16 witnesses recognized him. The police conducted a second lineup where for example one witness stated that they were 95% sure that the suspect that they identified was at the scene of the crime, yet in the original lineup that person was unable to identify anyone from the lineup. One key piece of information was discovered,

“Wrongfully convicted at age 25, Calvin Johnson received a life sentence for the rape of a Georgia woman after four different women identified him. Exonerated in 1999, he walked out of prison a 41-year old man. The true rapist has never been found, (The Justice Project).” Eyewitness testimony is highly relied on by judges, but it can not always be trusted. Approximately 48% of wrong convictions are because of mistaken identity by eyewitnesses (The Psychology of Eyewitness Testimony). After we discovered this information, we became curious as to whether in a testimony, the eyewitness’ memory is more reliable after a short period of time or after a longer period of time? According to previous experiments, eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Likely, we want to know if a testimony that is given two to three hours after a crime has taken place is more reliable than a testimony given after a longer period of time.

Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has been particularly concerned with how subsequent information can affect an eyewitness’s account of an event. The fact the eyewitness testimony can be unreliable and influenced by leading questions is illustrated by the psychology study by Loftus and Palmer (1974). The aim of the study was to test their hypothesis that the language used in eyewitness testimony can alter memory. To test this, Loftus and Palmer asked people to estimate the speed of motor vehicles using different forms of questions.

Credability of Eyewitness Testimony Is Eyewitness testimony reliable and accurate? Include case studies to back this up. EWT refers to evidence supplied by people who witness a specific event or crime, relying on their own memory. Statements often include descriptions given in a criminal trial and subsequent identification by individuals who were present at the crime scene. EWT is likely to dependent on reconstructive memory(Bartlett,1932) which describes how memory is more than a passive recall.

The memory of an eyewitness has always been an endless dispute throughout the narration of its existence. The word of an individual holds the most substance; it’s the only real thing of value that person hold, having a witness of a crime is a criminal’s vilest nightmare. There is a phrase that may have been heard in movies and reality, ‘eyewitness do not live too long.’ This phrase has range amongst people revealing the reputation of eye witnessing for the majority and jury. All evidence used to convict a person has to go through a vigilant examination process especially the testimony of an eyewitness. So much emphasis is put on a truthful and accurate testimony because there has been a false testimony, which cause consequences and complications. Criminal justice systems should demand their district to notice there is an occurrence of bad witness memory, because the brain will juggle and play games with the hauler. Predominantly, the mix up happens because of the perception particularities the individuals mind has mad up and the original information. Memory is simply the development of perception, how the brain process what is seen and reproduces it later. Since there is a chance that the reproduction of once memory will be wrong that makes it essential to the individual does not damage the facts. This accentuates the stress on the knowledge of the eyewitness well-being

Eyewitnesses are vital in the court of law, first amid law enforcement examinations, subsequently a wellsprings of confirmation when legal proceedings are conveyed to trial. When assessing the reported accounts of eyewitnesses, the relative importance of concern should decide whether it is accurate or inaccurate. Not in the lab, nonetheless, it’s by and large unrealistic to check the substance of witness reports equitably. All things considered, the factor of confidence communicated by an eyewitness turns into a possibly helpful indicator to separate amongst exact and mistaken recollections. Therefore, in general there is an instinctive conviction when confidence is communicated around recollected memories may in fact be utilized to construe it as accurate or inaccurate, in between the overall population and by experts of the criminal justice system. The confidence communicated by an observer in his or her affirmation gives off an impression of being a solid determinant of the apparent believability of the eyewitness.

This webpage presents false memory at a glance. The webpage covers topics relating specifically to false memory, such as the definitions, causes, impacts, and who is affected. The author distinguishes false memory from other forms of memory fallibility. Also, the author indicates the various factors that influence false memory like misinformation, misattribution, existing knowledge, and suggestions from therapists or investigators. Finally, the author concludes that false memory is problematic especially in criminal trials and eyewitness testimony, where false memories are one of the leading causes of false convictions due to false identification of a suspect, or false recollections during interrogations.

An Article Review of “Memory blindness: Altered memory reports lead to distortion in eyewitness memory” by Cochran et al. (2016)

The purpose of Loftus and Palmer’s study concerning the ‘Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction’ took place in order to test their hypothesis that language used in eyewitness testimony can modify a subject’s memory of a certain event. Therefore, they aimed to demonstrate that a leading question could misinterpret an eyewitness testimony account and consequently, could result in complete misjudgement, as the cues embedded within the question could distort the account entirely. To justify this idea, Loftus and Palmer asked subjects to estimate the speed of vehicles using a variety of question types. Generally, estimating the speed of a vehicle is a skill which the human population are very poor at, therefore the subjects may adopt a habit for guessing.

Conformity which is a behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards, is the finding of the study of social psychology linked to biology which are areas in which the Human Sciences have experimentally demonstrated that shared knowledge can shape personal knowledge. In order to first understand this relationship between shared knowledge and personal knowledge, one needs to understand how the human memory should not be trusted at a 100% as it is flawed because “juries tend to pay close attention to eyewitness testimony and generally find it a reliable source of information” (Simply Psychology, 2009) says Saul McLeod. Loftus and Palmer conduct a study on eyewitness testimony to prove its unreliability and to prove their hypothesis that the terms used in eyewitness testimony can easily affect