Mcmartin Preschool Case Study

The aim of Loftus and Palmer’s study was to investigate how language can be used to manipulate or distort one’s memory in an eyewitness testimony.

A false memory is a fabricated or corrupt recollection of an event. Memories can be false in inconsequential and considerable ways. An inconsequential way is thinking one’s coat is hanging in the closet when it is really on a chair in the dining room. A considerable way is when there is an implication that one was sexually abused as a child. There are factors that include misinformation that interfere with the formation of a new memory, causing recollection to be mistaken or entirely false. False memories can have serious implications, such as the false identification of a suspect or false recollection during police interrogations. In regards to eyewitness testimony, the length of time between the incident and being interviewed about the event

Doing field experience at St.Mary’s Preschool has taught me a lot not only about the educational system but about myself as well. I’ve learned over these couple of months that in order to become a wonderful teacher, you have to have an enormous amount of patience and dedication. Teaching isn’t an easy profession and through this experience, my respect for my teachers have grown tremendously. Many students often take their teachers for granted but they don't realize what they do for us.

Good Morning Gentleman and Ladies – I appreciate the DA giving me an opportunity to speak to you. I have read the background information on your specific case. Today’s presentation will present on overview of the research concerning false memories and how such findings could apply to this particular case. I will then outline some situations that are known to increase the likelihood of false memories and end with strategies that may reduce the occurrence of false memories

A study done in 2005 showed that when 30 statements regarding eyewitness issues, jurors disagreed with memory experts in 87% of the issues, and judges disagreed with 60% of the issues (Benton et al. 117). Therefore, even though jurors and judges agreed with memory experts on more statements regarding “memory myths” than did jurors, their understanding of these memory myths still greatly deviated from memory experts; which shows the uninformative nature of juror and the

One of the worst things a parent can hear is that their child has been molested; learning those responsible is your child’s daycare provider is even harder to come to terms with. In August of 1983 the mother of a 2 year old boy reported her son told her he had been sexually abused by a day care provider. The accused was Ray Buckey, 31, the daycare’s only make employee and son of its owner. (Debenedictis, 1990) The trial became the longest and most expensive trial in American history. The trial left in its path 369 children claiming to have been molested in some way, along with Ray Buckey serving 5 years in jail throughout the 6 year trail which cost the American government more than 15 million dollars. (Reinhold, 1990) This trial brought light to whether a young child can actually be considered an expert witness, and ruined the lives of many of the day care’s workers. (Debenedictis, 1990)

To reduce some of the problems that have been found with eyewitness memory and testimony, I recommend not mistaking confidence for memory accuracy and using multiple techniques and interviewing models to develop more accurate and consistent information (i.e. using the cognitive enhanced interview model and combined with the Reid model or other models). Also, courts and jurors need to test/check for suggestibility and coercive interview or investigative practices before trials

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

Elizabeth Loftus is a cognitive psychologist. I chose her because I love criminal justice and psychology. Her studies have to do with both, so she was the perfect choice. She is known for studying memory. She plays a huge role in psychology and the legal system. She conducts studies about how memory affects eyewitness testimonies. She has written more than 400 publications (McNally, 2007). She is different than other psychologists studying memory because she investigates memory for naturalistic events (McNally, 2007). She does not study memory by using a list of words or studying nonsense syllables like Ebbinghaus did. Elizabeth Loftus has published plenty of articles talking about how alibis being inconsistent does not equate to them being liars. Inconsistency does not equal accuracy. She has also written articles about how confidence does not equate to honesty.

Elizabeth Loftus is a psychologist that studies the way memories can be altered or implanted into someone’s mind (McLeod, Loftus and Palmer, 2010). One of the experiments she conducted was to implant a false memory of getting lost in a shopping mall as a child into the mind of a teenager (False Memories, 1992). She did this by getting the parents to write down memories their child would remember and placing a fake one in their of getting lost while shopping in a mall (False Memories, 1992). The teenager thought they remembered the time they got lost and were even telling details about that time (False Memories, 1992). After realising that she was able to plant a memory into a person’s head she realised the memory is not always accurate (False Memories, 1992). Loftus described memory in three words, suggestive, subjective and malleable (False Memories, 1992).

Since this is a huge problem in the legal system, there has been a huge debate on whether or not the reports of recovering memories of abuse can be authentic, since human memory is susceptible to distortion. These types of memories can either help or hurt people in the system for example prosecuting an innocent person who was accused of being an abuser. However, very few studies have been done on the population of at risk children such as those in foster care or adoption.

Unfortunately error in memory recall is not the only difficulty facing those who have experience wrongful conviction. In Mr. Bravo’s case he was unable to produce a strong alibi due to the lack of assistance from his council (“Innocence Lost,” 2004). This setback

The area of cognitive psychology that this article focuses on, is the impact that cognitive interviews have on false memories and beliefs. A false memory appears when a person recalls memories of events that did not actually happen to him or her. Nonetheless, a study conducted by S.J. Sherman and M.B. Powell, consisted of exposing people to false events using instructions taken from a cognitive interview, a method of interviewing and questioning people about events they may have witnessed (Sharman et al., 2013). In this specific study, researchers examined the integration that cognitive interviews may have on making participants feel more confident towards the validity of their childhood experience, regardless or not whether it actually happened

Children’s testimonies have serious implications for the accused and the question of whether or not children are reliable sources of information have been brought to the attention of judges and cognitive psychologists. The history of court proceedings allowing child witnesses to testify has seen an increase in false accusations against teachers, friends, and family members, bringing to question as to why or how a child may come up with false memories. Psychological research into the subject has shed some light on some possibilities as to how some children may be susceptible to manipulations.

While these studies do not fully exemplify the harmful reality of false memories, they take a step towards understanding how these false memories might occur in real-world settings. As Loftus (1997) discusses, it is only natural to wonder whether or not this research is applicable to real-world situations such as being interrogated by law officers or in psychotherapy. What researchers have learned, and can apply to this practical problem is that there are social demands on individuals to remember and come up with detailed memories. Not only that, but memory construction through suggestion and imagining events has been shown to be explicitly encouraged when people are having trouble remembering events (Loftus, 1997).