http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/2003Nature.pdf
I found this article by Elizabeth Loftus, a professor of psychology and professor of law at the University of Washington. Loftus has written many articles about memory, and its vulnerability to manipulation. This article discussed a few studies Loftus and some colleagues conducted to prove the malleability of our memories. She emphasized the importance of memory when it comes to crime and legal issues. Loftus thinks there should be new approaches implemented to reduce and eventually eliminate witness misidentification. America has a much higher rate of wrongful convictions than Canada and Great Britain because they have less faith in witness identification and are more strict on their reviews of cases involving eye witness testimonies.
The article summarizes a few of the studies Loftus and her colleagues have performed concerning the power of false memories, and the ease of misleading a person to believe they saw or did something that never happened. Memory is vulnerable and it should be treated with care to avoid tampering with real memories.
This memory information need to be made more public. I think they should try to increase education levels, so people understand how unreliable it can be. A big part of our legal system, and something that determines the fate of so many people should not relie on an issue which has been proven so incorrect. Also, if people are made more aware of how easily memories can be changed, this simple information may prevent them from being so easily manipulated. If they know that they can be, they could be more active in trying to avoid it. These studies are important and need to be made aware to the more general public.
Very interesting post Nichole. I have always been fascinating by how the human brain does in fact work and having taken a decent amount of psychology classes this area (memory) is very important to law (and crime in general). I feel that it definitely is important for law enforcement individuals to keep "up to speed" on various aspects of psychology - especially memory and cognition. Just from being in this class and reviewing random Innocence Project web sites, it is easy to see that the United States does indeed have its fair share of wrongful convictions. Eyewitness memory (testimony) can shift drastically when prosecutors/defense use leading questions or questions along the lines of "trying" to manipulate a forthcoming response from the witness. I do feel law enforcement systems should take to "memory" with extra care, not only to justify the integrity of an investigation, but also to protect individuals who very well may be innocent whom have been charged with a crime (because the investigative team took a witnesses word of seeing that particular "criminal" at the scene, etc).
This article by Loftus was very interesting. I never realized the number of people that are sent to prison because of misidentificaiton. What interests me is that these people actually believe what they are saying. Loftus makes a good point that our memories can be changed by other sources of information. I know this has happened to me before. Once i tell a story with wrong information, then thats the story that gets stuck in my head even though i had all the right details in the first place. Its not hard to put details into someones memories. Leading questions or hearing what other people thought they saw can change what you saw. The story about the sniper shootings in D.C. amazed me. Some witnesses thought they saw a white van at the scenes of the shootings and it was released to the press so everyone heard about it. Later shootings other witnesses said they saw a white van leaving the scene of the shooting, when in reality the snipers where driving a blue car which is a little off from a white van.
I think that this information needs to be made more public so people are aware that their memories can be change or transformed without them knowing it or realizing it. Maybe with this information that Loftus had presented we can come up with better ways to combat this problem.
Great post! One of the most compelling concepts surrounding the issue of false memories is the distress it can cause. Whether we want to believe it or not, those with false memories can internalize the fallacy, and suffer mental anguish and distress from something that never even happened! While not as profound or publicly humiliating, I don't think false memories are that much different than wrongful convictions. The afflicted are still suffering from something they weren't even involved in. In class we discussed cases of alleged child abuse, when experts are quite certain that no abuse had actually occurred! Mental unrest, and severed personal relationships are just a few of the possible negative effects of false memories. My mom just told me about her cousins account of abuse when she was a child, and this class was the first thing that I thought of. I am not saying that my mom's relative did not experience abuse, but it makes me wonder if it really happened. Of course there is no reason to believe that it didn't, but she's over 50 years old, imagine living a life profoundly affected by events that never happened! Scary stuff...