Declarative Memory And Memory Distortions

Memory distortion is more prevalent than many think and consequently eye-witness testimonies misidentifications have cause many false convictions. Informing jurors, law enforcements, and judges about the memory phenomena can help them distinguish between the innocence and guilty. Memory is fragile since it can be altered based on mood and experience, rendering eye witness testimonies as less valid than the justice community have previously understood. In this paper, I will discuss two articles that explore the neurobiology behind memory retention and formation along with its courtroom applications. Lacy and Stark (2013) discusses common misunderstandings, memory distortions, neuroscience of memory, and memory distortions effect on the law

Development of declarative memory changes with age. As people transition from adolescent to adult their capacity for episodic memory improves. Rich details given by adults about their childhood are prone to error since people rarely remember miniscule details. False memory is easily implanted in younger children, indicating their testimonies’ to have a higher chance of misinterpretations. Interestingly, the concept of disgust forms later in child development. Therefore, when adults testify feeling disgusted during their childhood event are influenced by later experiences and is fabricated based on schemas. Additionally, the misconception that children will remember traumatic events more distinctly is false. During adolescent, children do not have the capacity to fully interpret emotional contents. Adolescence only have episodic memory and have not developed semantic knowledge. Long term memory is regulated by the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe, which is not yet fully developed during adolescent. These cortical regions are also responsible for distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant information. However, adults are also prone to false memory because as adolescent transition into adulthood their experiences are stored abstractly and is subject to change based on experience. During retrieval,

They offer evidence of adults, jurors, and even highly trained military officials as subject to false memory. Both articles lack the implication of memory retrieval through hypnosis. According to Stark and Larry, more than 50% of the public agree that hypnosis is a valid method to retrieve suppressed memory. However, hypnosis can lead to confabulation, pseudo-memories (Orne, 1981). In some cases, hypnosis is used as a “refresher” to enhance eyewitness memory recall. Informing about the effect of psychotherapy on memory distortion would be beneficial in the courtroom. Unfortunately, there are companies taking advantage of the memory phenomena and tries to make money off of it. For example, BEOS is a device that supposedly reads brain stimulation and predicts whether people are innocent (Giridharadas, 2008). Despite, its validity it was used in India. Devices like this should be highly regulated and tested so no innocent people are