Elizabeth Loftus False Presuppositions

One of the reasons that eyewitness evidence is so unreliable is because human memory is very open to suggestion. In fact, just asking about something can alter our memory. (1) For example, in the 80-90’s, many psychotherapists were

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.

The cognitive interview increases the credibility of eyewitness testimony by decreasing memory error and confabulations.

Eyewitness testimonies can be the reason why a person is convicted for an offence they may or may not have committed. Psychological research shows that eyewitness testimony is not always accurate and the memory can be altered. Elizabeth Loftus is a psychological researcher that studies the mind and false memories. Studies and experiments by Elizabeth Loftus, Florida Atlantic University psychologists and many other psychologists provide evidence that supports the theory that memories can be altered and therefore eyewitness testimonies are not always accurate.

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

An eyewitness can change the course of an investigation. However, how reliable that can be? People believe that we remember an event as exactly as it was, such as replaying the facts. Elizabeth Loftus is one of the leading researchers in the area of memory, and she found that memories are not accurately re-created. Reconstructing facts from our lives cannot be harmful, but it can be critical when deciding a criminal event. Loftus studies demonstrated that a simple wording question might change the eyewitness answer.

False memories are often an issue that comes up in the courts, when a witness testifies. Loftus conducted a study on members of the military. These members were being trained in handling interrogations in the event that they were captured by the enemy. They underwent a very stressful physical interrogation.

In 1907, Hugo Munsterberg published ‘On the Witness Stand’, in which he questioned the reliability of eyewitness identification. When Yale Law professor Edwin Borchard studied 65 wrongful convictions for his pioneering 1932 book, ‘Convicting the Innocent’, he found that eyewitness misidentification was the leading contributing factor of wrongful convictions. Research illustrates that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. In eyewitness identifications, witness memory is impacted by a variety of factors that occur from the time of the crime onwards, and their memories can be easily contaminated. This is linked with the concept of ‘false memories’ they are events recalled by a witness that did not actually happen.

The second study evaluated how the emotions of a witness can cause errors in the retelling of their story when there were no suggestions made. The participants in the study watched a violent video clip, then they were split into three groups. These groups consisted of an emotional aspect, factual and the controlled group. In the emotional group the individuals were instructed to talk about how the video made them feel when they were retelling the story. In the factual group they were told to just tell exactly what they remember what happened. The controlled group did an activity that was unrelated to the subject. All completed a free call and cue driven memory tests. The cue tests showed that it had little effort on the focus of telling the

The first study had resulted in the opposite of what l would assume would only support the theory of false memories being instilled into subjects. In addition, I also noticed how the wording of certain questions, may have had an influence on whether or not subjects recalled events that never happened. It was only when participants were being told to recall certain events, rather than being asked, that they were allowed room to expand their imagination, thus going as far as to vividly describe an event that never occurred. The second study divided the theory of the fabrication of memories, and suggested that some people may be immune to believing false memories. What l found to be interesting about the second study, was that researchers divided their subjects into two groups, with one of their groups being individuals with a highly superior autobiographical memory - yet, investigators were still able to

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

False memory can be defined as a person believing they remember something that did not actually happen (Loftus, 1997). It is a common misconception that human memories are accurate and reliable (Poston, 2014), though many studies have revealed the reconstructive nature of memory and its vulnerability to distortion (e.g., Frenda, Nichols, & Loftus, 2011; Nash & Wade, 2008). This misconception forms an integral part of the modern justice system. Judges, attournies and juries are all prone to believe testimony from a confident eyewitness (Van Wallendael et al., 2007) and legal confessions are considered among the most compelling forms of evidence (e.g., Cutler, 2012; Kassin, Bogart, & Kerner, 2012). But what happens when these legal statements are based on false memories?

Research into false memory has been carried out to determine how reliable the memory can be. Loftus (2003) looked at eyewitness memory and how accurate it can be. In one study Loftus showed films of traffic

Roediger and McDermott’ (1995), experiment based on Deese’s (1959) experiment renewed the interest in false memories and invented the Deese-McDermott-Roediger Paradigm which many studies surround. Their study focused on eliciting false memories through receiving lists of words and being asked to recall those that were present from a separate list that included a critical word that if recalled, showed presence of false memory effects. Notably many participants were sure that the

In the first follow-up interview, roughly eighteen percent remembered the false event and in the second follow-up, twenty-five percent remembered the false event (Hyman, Husband, & Billing 1995). As this study indicates, memories are more susceptible to modification when the passage of time allows the original memory to fade. Being lost, however, is not the same as being abused. Another crucial component involved in the formation of false memories is the imagination inflation. Loftus (1997) found that the more often an individual imagined an unperformed action, the more likely they were to later on remember having performed it.