The Psychology Of Elizabeth Loftus : Cognitive Psychology

Eleanor Maccoby broke headlines with her controversial “feminist” studies. Despite her achievements in gender differences, she actually studied behavioral psychology for and was quite passionate about it. Eleanor didn’t gain major interest in gender differences till she started to notice that being a female was hindering her ability to advance at her then job, at Harvard University. As the first women to serve as Chairman of the Psychology Department at Stanford, Eleanor Maccoby has greatly impacted psychology. She sought to study a field that had never been studied before and at a time when women were being discriminated. She has helped pave the way for many women psychologist, opened up new fields of study and was so impactful to the psychology community that they named an award after her. That is why Eleanor Maccoby is so

Margaret Floy Washburn was born on July 25, 1871 in New York City to parents Reverend Francis and Elizabeth Floy Washburn. She was born in a time when women were not allowed to display any type of power, higher reasoning, or desire for higher education. At the age of seven, she began her educational journey in the home of a retired Presbyterian minister who lived next door to her family. In 1886, she graduated from high school at the young age of 15 years old. Upon completion of high school, she attended Vassar College where she studied Chemistry and French. However, by the time she had graduated her educational interests had changed to philosophy and science, which

Washington D.C. Daughter of Dr. William S. Lofton who was a well known black dentist and

Information is the lifeblood of a criminal investigation. The ability of investigators to obtain useful and accurate information from eyewitnesses of crimes is crucial to effective law enforcement, yet full and accurate recall is difficult to achieve (Stewart, 1985). Such elicitation of complete and accurate recall from people is important in many aspects of life; specifically, eyewitness recall may determine whether a case is solved. Principle advocates of the cognitive interview (Fisher, Geiselman, Holland & MacKinnon,

Many false-convictions have occurred because of a witness believing their memory as correct, when in actuality the memory had been altered. The Innocence Project has had numerous cases in which victims pick out a defendant from a line-up believing they are the real perpetrator, however, years later DNA evidence proved the man was innocence. While victims should be treated with respect, and have their voices heard, it is vital to take the findings in account to make sure the judicial process is as fair as possible, for both the accused and the victims. In a Ted Talk Loftus says memories are much like Wikipedia pages, we can go into them and edit, yet so can others. As Loftus’s research gave other scholars the ground work establishing memory is not as infallible as original thought, scholars should do more research for further

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

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

Beatrice Moses Hinkle (1874-1953) was born in San Francisco. She was privately educated, and enjoyed the arts and literature. Beatrice was an extraordinary thinker. She had the strong encouragement of her parents who were committed to educational methods and thrive for success, but little else is known about her family relations. In 1892, Beatrice married Walter S. Hinkle, a lawyer and assistant district attorney, and that same year entered the Cooper Medical School, which later was taken over by Stanford University. Sadly, her husband died in 1899 after only seven years of marriage.

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 ability to handle hardships in the world can come easy to some and to others it may be so completely out of their own grasp that they give up without even trying. During the time frame of Kaye Gibbon’s novel Ellen Foster, the world was divided; the rich verses the poor. Others could view the nation as the whites verses the blacks. Ellen Foster is right along the middle of this division. Ellen is a white eleven year old child who faces hardship one after another. A main theme in Ellen Foster is how she deals with her pain by distracting herself with self-determination as well as comedic relief.

Based on those experiments, Loftus affirms the inaccuracy of our memory, events may be reconstructed with new information added. Applying those results into criminal investigations based on eyewitness, Loftus pointed out that witness is questioned often more than once. Also, studies have demonstrated that line-up might be a inefficient way of point a suspect since many faces are introduced to the witness. In addition to eyewitness testimony, Loftus is leading also in repressed childhood memory. Most of her experiments demonstrated that repressed childhood memories do not exist. In fact, the most traumatic memories that we experience are the ones that we tend to not forget

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,

Elizabeth Loftus is a psychologist and professor who researches false memories and repressed memories. Jacque Wilson, a CNN reporter, covered several of her researches in Trust your memory? Maybe you shouldn't. Professor Loftus has been consulted on several court cases on false memories, but after her consultation on a case to defend George Franklin who was being convicted for rape and murder of his daughter's best friend when she was a child based on a 'repressed memory' over ten years old. After some conversations with Eileen Franklin, the daughter, and her psychiatrist, Professor Loftus began to believe the "repressed memories" were accidentally created rather than resurfaced.

“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.

masculine autonomy that deprives powerful middle-class men of the capacity to relate to other people – either their employees or their families”(Stoneman 145). Jem destroys his reputation and becomes a pariah in order to shield her from the truth. He attempts to protect her from being disillusioned, outraged or melancholy from her father’s sin. By taking the blame for Harry’s death, he commits social suicide. He is scrutinized by all and suffers for substituting as a father figure. Jem defies the masculine ideology that promotes misogyny to control women’s agency for the purpose of preserving patriarchy.