False Memory Eyewitness Case Study

Also they could lie for the perpetrator so then when they get out of jail or prison they don’t come after the witness, like in a domestic abuse case, or a rape case. Many people believe that the human memory works like a video recorder like the mind records events and then, on cue, plays back an exact replica of them. Psychologists have found that the memories are reconstructed rather then played back each time we recall them. On this website (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-it/ paragraph 4) they state that “The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is ‘more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.’ Even questioning by a lawyer can alter the witness’s testimony because fragments of the memory may unknowingly be combined with information provided by the questioner, leading to inaccurate recall.” The more violent the event, the least likely it is that the witness or victim will remember the event with accuracy.

Eyewitness misidentification can pose a serious threat in forensic evidence. Eye witness testimony can easily be tampered with due to words or phrases used. Bias is a major issue in identification especially if the police officer uses suggestive tones to portray whom they believe is the suspect. Some witnesses will change their opinion when they hear new information of the suspect. A study has shown that words can play a major impact in the witness' mind and cause them to recall false information. False information can also stem from human memory, age, distance, and how long it took before a witness could recall the information. It has been shown that due to the confidence that a witness may have, it could impact the court systems' reliability on the witness; however, there are several solutions that can be done to prevent misidentification in the court of law. Some examples that can be done are blind administration, lineup composition, instructions, confidence statements, and

In each trial, the participants were presented with a sequence of words on the left side of the window. Each word was presented for one and a half seconds. After all the words were presented, the response buttons were presented on the right side of window. These response buttons were labeled with words from the sequence along with new distractor words that were not part of the sequence. The goal of the participants was to click on the response buttons and identify all the words that were part of the sequence. The independent variable for this study was the types of words that were presented on the test (response buttons). The dependent variable was the percentage of each types of items reported.

Research shows 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. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully, or it can be contaminated. A case I would like to mention is the Calvin Willis Case. One night in 1982, three young girls were sleeping alone in a Shreveport, Louisiana home when a man in cowboy boots came into the house and raped the oldest girl, who was Ten years old. When police started to investigate the rape, the three girls all remembered the attack differently. One police report said the Ten year old victim didn’t see her attacker’s face. Another report which wasn’t introduced at trial said she identified Calvin Willis, who lived in the neighbourhood. The girl’s mother testified at trial that neighbours had mentioned Willis’s name when discussing who might have committed the crime. The victim testified that she was shown photos and told to pick the man without a full beard. She testified that she didn’t pick anyone, police said she picked Willis. Willis was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. In 2003, DNA testing proved Willis’ innocence and he was released. He had served nearly Twenty Two years in prison for a crime he didn’t

This article is about a sexual assault bill that is being considered and that according to supporters would prevent wrongful convictions. It would require victims to corroborate their testimony only if the defendant doesn’t have a prior conviction. Since this could be a very controversial issue a forensic psychologist could be hired to clarify the nature of the problem; to either prove that the bill could help prevent wrongful convictions by using logic and evidence or that it would make those cases where evidence simply doesn’t exist harder. A forensic psychologist could argue, for example, that victims are not always able of providing a reliable story; that it is possible for them to miss a prominent characteristic because it has happened

Factors such as misinformation and eyewitness talk can easily affect the memory of eyewitnesses and therefore affect their testimony_. Evidence which is usually provided during eyewitness memory reports helps to determine the guilt or innocence of a perpetrator in a criminal proceeding_. With the help of many basic psychological and neuroscience studies, it has been indicated that because memory is a reconstructive process it is likely to be influenced and vulnerable to change and misinformation_. Due to memory being vulnerable, any minor memory misrepresentation can have severe consequences when used in the courtroom_. Memory errors when regarding the identification of a perpetrator of a specific crime has been focused on during research

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

The seriousness of this problem is exemplified in the cases of individuals creating false memories of sexual abuse as a result of therapy. These types of events caused vast amounts of research to be done on the topic. The Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm has been one of the most popular in false memory research and it continues to be a topic of interest today. A search of “DRM” in all text and “False Memory” in subject terms, using PsycINFO, gave results of 560 peer-reviewed articles published in research journals within the last five years (2011-2016).

The novel Unfair: the new science of criminal injustice, is a collection of short pieces addressing different situations in the criminal justice world where psychology plays a major role in determining outcomes. Chapter 6, "The Corruption of Memory”, addresses the problems with the process and using of an eyewitness testimony to convict someone (108-132). John Jerome White’s real-life example is used to demonstrate the problems with eyewitness testimony and how mistakes made during the process can ruin someone’s life. In the case of John Jerome White, he was misidentified as the man who raped and robbed a 74 year old women, by the victim herself (6 weeks later), which resulted in him spending 28 years in prison. To make it worse the actual guilty man, James Edward Parham, was in the lineup one person away from Mr. White and he was not caught again until he raped another victim. Many errors were made in how the case was handled and although they were not intentional they still magnify problems in the justice system and how we view our memories. From immediately after the crime to the point a suspect is put behind bars, the questioning, interrogation techniques, line up methods, and cross examinations can all effect the victims and witness’s recollection of events. Human memories are thought to be strong but with all the information that needs to be processed they are not as reliable as thought. However, this is not accounted for in the criminal justice system and it can greatly affect the outcomes of cases like John Jerome White’s. The point of the criminal justice system is to provide justice like it says in its name and although it happens more times than not, if there are possibilities of not providing justice they need to be fixed. Chapter 6, "The Corruption of Memory”, looks at what went wrong in order to wrongly convict an innocent man which ended up costing him half his life and how psychological principles could help prevent this from happening again.

False memories have been studied science the early 1990’s because they have become controversial topic. In the beginning they was no thought that your memory would be unfaithful and that if you had a memory that you “recovered” it had to be true because your memory couldn’t fail you. Could it? Well one woman’s disbelief caused her, Susan Clancy, who was a Harvard University graduate student at the time decided that while everyone else was arguing over the accuracy of recovered memories, she would create a study on them (Grierson 1). Clancy first started out by interviewing her subjects that said to have recovered memories of abuse after they had gone through therapy. The stories were horrifying but she was brought up to believe that what they were telling her was true. But, soon after she found herself wondering if they had even really went through these events that they “recovered”. When she spoke out against the recovered memory patients saying that they couldn’t of forgotten such a traumatic memory and that they had created a false memory by going to the therapy the hate mail started coming in (Grierson 3). Throughout this time many other scientists started to do more and more research on false memories and most of the studies have concluded with the same information. “The false memory researchers point to other research showing that traumatic events are normally remembered all too well. They argue that

When a person has a fabricated or distorted recollection of an event, they are experiencing a false memory. A false memory is a mental experience that is mistaken for a veridical representation of an event from one’s personal past. (Kendra Cherry) There are two types of false memories: minor and major. A minor false memory can be some as simple as someone thinking they left their keys on the table, but actually left them in the bedroom. A major false memory could be someone believing they have been abducted from aliens. False memories occur frequently and can take control over someone’s life. Therapists have many approaches that they use to try and help one recollect their memory. While trying to help, they may actually worsen the problem. Research supports the salience of false recollections over accurate ones in people, potentially indicating that every person in a given society can fall victim to their effects. Revealing that this theory has more truth than many expect affecting many people within our societies.

The need for understanding the phenomenon of repressed memories is also very important from a legal standpoint. In recent years there has been numerous cases of people suing their parents or other authority figures for abuse that has been recalled many years after the abuse was said to have occurred. The rulings in these cases have often been controversial considering there is often not enough concrete or collaborative evidence to prove the accused to be guilty or innocent. The judge and jury are often forced to make a ruling that relies heavily on the testimonial of the accuser. This is very contentious considering there is not an accurate and reliable test to determine the validity of the accuser.

In the article false memory susceptibility a case study was done on 80 OEF/OIF veterans (69 men and 11 women) were divided into 2 groups those with PTSD and those without PTSD. The test that was given to them was a Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) test. This is a test that sees how susceptible an individual is to new outside information. Both groups where given 16 list of words some that where considered neutral words and other list that where considered traumatic words. The list where given to the participants separately but in a sequential order 3 neutral list, one traumatic list and this was alternated until all 16 list where given.

False Memories are fundamentally, unintended human errors, which results in people having memories of events and situations that did not actually occur. It’s worth noting that in humans there are both true and false memories, these false memories occur when a mental experience is incorrectly taken to be a representation of a past event. For example, when people are asked to describe something that happened at a particular time, people rarely deliver accurate answers. Based on research, in eyewitness testimony, the confidence people show while recalling

No, I believe everyone should remember events that occurred in their life because hard life events can help individuals grow, cope, and learn how to deal with life’s challenges. Although, psychologists are meant to respect and protect their patients, however that doesn’t occur all the time. For example, a woman remembered being sacrifice into a satanic ritual, forcibly impregnated and having her stomach cut open however, there’s no physical evidence for her memory. How is that helping the patient? What benefit does she get out of it? Furthermore, I believe implanting a false memory is disrespectful towards the patient due to false memory can change a person whole memory and it could result into a personality change. No doubt implanting false