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MEMORY AND EYEWITNESS TESTIMONEY ESSAY

Accuracy and Memory of Eyewitness Testimony James B. Driscoll Grand Canyon University: PSY 102 12/15/2019

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MEMORY AND EYEWITNESS TESTIMONEY ESSAY

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Eyewitness Testimony Eyewitness misidentifications made with high confidence from eyewitness testimony and memory in a court of law under oath have been known to have played a role in more than 70%75% of the 358 wrongful convictions that have been overturned based on DNA evidence since 1989 (Wixted, L. Mickes, R.P. Fisher, (2018). On the surface, the details in favor of the detailed memory being more accurate is based on police interrogations did over and over again asking the same questions but rephrasing them to give the witness more confidence in their answers. Because of the way our brain remembers memory, regardless of confidence, or emotion– does it seems somewhat convincing or unconvincing? Research shows that people can actually make up things that never even happened to fill in the memory blanks. The book, “Psychology in my Life”, states that memory is stored in three stages, sensory input, short-term and long-term storage (Grison, S., & Gazzaniga, M. S. (2017). Is eye-witness testimony questionable because the majority of witnesses fail to provide accurate information about the incident? The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitness testimony and memory, and this information is quickly lost in memory encoding, storage, and retrieval, as we will see.

Article 1 - The effect of encoding duration on implicit and explicit eyewitness memory The article “The effect of encoding duration on implicit and explicit eyewitness memory” by Rolando N. Carol, Nadja Schreiber Compo, written from “Consciousness and Cognition” explains that after a crime has been perpetrated the main goal is for the police is to interview an eyewitness who can provide details about the particular crime. If, during an investigative interviewing, an eyewitness claims to be unable to remember a particular detail, is it fair to assume memory of this detail is lost for good? Researchers state that memory is rebuilt in nature

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(e.g., Barlett, 1932; Loftus, 1979) that is, memory is not like a tape recorder which stores and plays back information as it was recorded, but our memory will fill in the blanks with other information that we have forgotten, even though it’s not real (descriptions by other witnesses, media coverage of the incident, etc.). We tend to make things up to sound logical based on our emotional state of mind and confidence level; we may be more accurate or less accurate (Wixted, J. T, 2018).

Article 2 - Misleading Postevent Information and Working Memory Capacity

In the article “Misleading Postevent Information,” the effect on eyewitness testimony was first demonstrated by Loftus et al. (1978) and has been very thoroughly studied ever since. This experiment had shown individuals watch a video of a crime event and were then asked to sort out the story that included misinformation regarding some details of the video. The working storage memory capacity of the participants was measured using the operation-word span task. Most individuals remembered fewer correct details in the misinformation condition compared to the controlled condition video (Carol, R. N., & Schreiber Compo, N. (2018). Thus reconstruction is present at each stage of memory and highly malleable and may blend with the original memory and thought processes (O'Donohue W.T. & E. Levensky, 2003). It was found that if a witness found out misleading information from another person at the scene, the witness would incorporate some of those findings into their testimony even though they didn’t see it, but just heard it from another person who also observed the incident. Witness remembered less when under stress or there was a violent crime with a weapon used or a person of a different race

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Eyewitness Testimony – Reliable or Unreliable For the final memory bank, the retrieval memory or long-term memory, we tend only to remember what we want to or what made an impression on us. There is where some information may be forgotten and the longer the time goes by the more details are lost. After a crime is committed and the law enforcement people ask witnesses questions, sometimes they cannot get to all the witnesses in one evening or days and could even be days or weeks. Memory is fallible, and eyewitnesses are often not able to remember the details regarding important forensic details. Researchers have made tests for determining for this study whether people can be misled into recalling or recognizing crimes that didn’t happen (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). When a person(s) remember or imagines an event happening, they form a mental image of the event based on emotions at the time, smell, colors, and environment, thus confusing the person later on (Grison, S., & Gazzaniga, M. S. (2017). Therefore based on the input from the witness sometimes DNA would be more reliable instead of eyewitness testimony is relied on. If a eyewitness has low belief and confidence in what they saw and the initial identification or story they told of the suspect is weak, no matter how much time changes and their story sounds more confident they become later through reinforcing.

Psychology in your Life Finally in summary, memory is typically divided into three stages and in situations relevant to eyewitness testimony, we encode memories when we witness a crime or other act. Once stored in our memory bank, it is retrieved later (Grison, S., & Gazzaniga, 2017). We only remember bits and pieces depending on the influence it had on us emotionally and mentally Jaschinski, U., & Wentura, D. (2002). There are all types of factors that influence our memory to

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distort it, such as leading questions by law enforcement in witness interviews, schemas, arousal, anxiety, violence distraction, and such things as whether the person was the same race and if a weapon was used in the criminal act. Quite often, external influences such as reports by the media, and another witness will influence the witness to change their testimony of fill in the blanks they don’t remember. This demonstrates that eyewitness memory is not as reliable as once thought and shouldn’t be relied upon heavily in the courts. The criminal justice system relies heavily on eyewitness testimony and memory and this information is quickly lost in memory encoding, retention, and retrieval as we have seen in our research.

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References Carol, R. N., & Schreiber Compo, N. (2018). The effect of encoding duration on implicit and explicit eyewitness memory. Consciousness and Cognition, 61, 117–128. https://doiorg.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.concog.2018.02.004

Chan, J. C. K., & LaPaglia, J. A. (2011). The dark side of testing memory: Repeated retrieval can enhance eyewitness suggestibility. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 17(4), 418–432. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1037/a0025147.supp (Supplemental)

Grison, S., & Gazzaniga, M. S. (2017). Psychology in Your Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, .Retrieved from: https://digital.wwnorton.com/4383/r/goto/cfi/8!/4

Jaschinski, U., & Wentura, D. (2002). Misleading postevent information and working memory capacity: an individual differences approach to eyewitness memory. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16(2), 223–231. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/acp.783

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O'Donohue W.T. & E. Levensky (Eds.), Handbook of forensic psychology: resource for mental health and legal professionals. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science & Technology. Basic memory processes. (2003). Retrieved from: https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login? url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/estforensic/basic_memory_processes /0?institutionId=5865

Wixted, L. Mickes, R.P. Fisher, Rethinking the reliability of eyewitness memory, Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 13 (2018) 324–335. [2] E. Retreived from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379073818305449

Loftus, K. Ketcham, The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1994.

Wixted, J. T. (n.d.). Time to exonerate eyewitness memory. FORENSIC SCIENCE INTERNATIONAL, 292, E13–E15. Retrieved from: https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2018.08.018...