The photo lineup and physical lineup contributed to the false identification as it led to the misinformation effect. The photos of the suspects were presented next to each other, which led Jennifer to compare between them instead of comparing them to her memory. The same lineup strategy was used to the physical lineup, which led her to believe that one of the suspects was the perpetrator and was inclined to decide which one resembled the most through process of elimination. Her decision took approximately five minutes, much longer than recognition memory that is from 10 to 15 seconds, but because they were in a lineup, she focused on comparing one to the other. Presenting a sequential rather than a simultaneous presentation of the suspects decreases the chances of making a relative judgement …show more content…
The Memory Trace Replacement Hypothesis states that MPI replaces the memories that were created during the original experience (Goldstein, 2011, pg.224). Part of the reconsolidation process, reactivating a memory has the potential of forming new, which occurred to Jennifer through the misleading events, such as identifying the suspect from the photo lineup while comparing to others and receiving misleading feedback from the investigator; pointing towards Cotton. This is evident in the moment Cotton attends retrial and Bobby Poole, the actual perpetrator, is present. Jennifer stated that she felt nothing towards Poole, but rather felt strong emotions against the defendant. She had actually replaced the memory of the perpetrator’s face and felt completely confident that it was Cotton. This is also evident in the Elizabeth Loftus’ experiment with the stop sign and yield sign. Certainly improving interviewing techniques could help the witness recreate the event and making all the changes stated above could prevent from new experiences impairing original
The Central Park Jogger case is one of false confessions to a crime, with a little help from police, which the defendants did not commit. Evidence taken at the crime scene did exclude the defendants, however, because of videotaped confessions they were sentenced to prison for a crime they admitted to committing even though they did not. It was not until many years later did the original perpetrator step forward from prison to admit he was the one who committed the crime with evidence (DNA) and firsthand knowledge of the scene. The five original defendants were released from prison but until serving a lengthy term. There are cues that can be noticed when investigators are conducting preliminary interviews that have a very high rate of success in determining the guilt or innocence of an individual. Some of these cues may be verbal such as a rehearsed response (Kassin, 2005). Other types of cues may be nonverbal body language such as a slouching (Kassin, 2005).
The White Male Fantasy of Total Recall After saving the planet from a ruthless dictator and barely avoiding death on the hills of Mars, Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) puts a final spin on Total Recall with his final lines: "I just had a terrible thought. What if this is all a dream?" This last statement by Quaid leaves the audience pondering the question of reality, wondering what truly was 'real.' By the end of the film, one could easily argue a whole realm of possibilities: The events were all real; they were all a dream; they were the Recall implant fantasy played out; or they were the Recall fantasy gone haywire. In addition, the film seems to reject imperialism and the domination of white males, also rather postmodern in ideology.
In Laurence Armand French Ph.D. and Thomas J. Young Ph.D.’s article The False Memory Syndrome: Clinical/Legal Issues for the Prosecution talks about memory recall being an unreliable form of evidence in the Criminal Justice System. French and Young state that hypnosis and lie detector tests are a misconception because “the cognitive interpretations of the emotional/autonomic aspects of the central nervous (CNS) and peripheral nervous systems are not true indicators of reality,” (p. 38).
The eyewitness testimony video part one revealed the story of Ron Cotton, and how he was unfairly convicted of a rape due to an incorrect recollection of memory. Jenifer, the victim of the case, studied the picture line-up for nearly five minutes before choosing a perpatrater; however, the actual rapist was not in the line-up. I now understand that the chance of picking the wrong criminal are much higher when the actual criminal is not a choice in the line-up. In the eyewitness testimony part two video, I learned that over 75 percent of people that were wrongly convicted were convicted due to false memories. Additionally, I found out that when police give positive reinforcement, memories are altered to fit what was said. This video also explained
Other factors to consider are the body language of an officer administering a lineup, as well as psychological influences such as witness recollection merging over time with the original event. Our minds are highly susceptible to suggestion, a police officer unknowingly leading us to a picture in a lineup, as they know the history of the people shown in the lineup. Over time we become more certain in the identification we made, as our recollection merges with the original
Minor consequences, might for instance, be confusing where one has placed something, like car keys. Such confusion can result in a simple inconvenience such as, the wasting of time. Although more serious consequence might for instance occur when one’s memory tricks the individual into giving false eyewitness accounts that might be costly to him, or other third parties. As such, it is important to critically analyze the dynamics of false memory formation and highlight methods that could be used to identi...
Psychological research shows, a witness's memory of details during the commission of a crime, has a high probability of containing significant errors. In response to these findings, the question is should witness testimony still be permissible in a court of law? Obviously, the answer to this question is an important one and is debatable. Consequently, what we know is many innocent people go to jail due to eyewitness misidentification. Therefore, it is imperative that all defense attorneys thoroughly evaluate the validity of eyewitness recollection events. Any defense attorney who does anything less is ignoring the findings of the psychological community and its’ study of how the brain functions. As a result, an intense analysis of an
To our knowledge, eyewitness memory could be simply defined as a person’s episodic memory that he or she has been a witness of a certain criminal event. However, psychologists have discovered that the confidence of memory recall of eyewitness, would increase significantly by asking them the simple question, (e.g., Do you see the perpetrator below the following pictures?), even though the feedback
The term that best explains the barriers to eyewitness memory is widely regarded as verbal overshadowing. The notion of verbal overshadowing has been coined as the inability to provide explicit memories due to the cognitive barriers people possess to depict accurately the events that have transpired. On a daily basis, individuals across the United States are sentenced to lengthy prison sentences resultant of wrongful convictions (Innocence Project, 2016). To illustrate the ambivalences caused by verbal overshadowing, if it even exists, behavioral scientists conducted a study to demonstrate the disparities. Many researchers have designed an experiment to measure a person’s cognitive ability to remember accurately a perpetrator that has committed a crime in a police lineup (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler,
Television has affected every aspect of life in society, radically changing the way individuals live and interact with the world. However, change is not always for the better, especially the influence of television on political campaigns towards presidency. Since the 1960s, presidential elections in the United States were greatly impacted by television, yet the impact has not been positive. Television allowed the public to have more access to information and gained reassurance to which candidate they chose to vote for. However, the media failed to recognize the importance of elections. Candidates became image based rather than issue based using a “celebrity system” to concern the public with subjects regarding debates (Hart and Trice). Due to “hyperfamiliarity” television turned numerous people away from being interested in debates between candidates (Hart and Trice). Although television had the ability to reach a greater number of people than it did before the Nixon/Kennedy debate, it shortened the attention span of the public, which made the overall process of elections unfair, due to the emphasis on image rather than issue.
The mammalian brain contains several different memory systems, which can be divided into declarative and non-declarative memory systems. Declarative memory can be further divided into episodic and semantic memory, and non-declarative memory can be divided into priming, associative learning, and procedural memory.
Wright, D. B. (2007). The impact of eyewitness identifications from simultaneous and sequential lineups. Memory, 15(7), 746-754. doi:10.1080/09658210701508401
Have you ever been an eyewitness at the scene of a crime? If you were, do you think that you would be able to accurately describe, in precise detail, everything that happened and remember distinct features of the suspect? Many people believe that yes they would be able to remember anything from the events that would happen and the different features of the suspect. Some people, in fact, are so sure of themselves after witnessing an event such as this that they are able to testify that what they think they saw was indeed what they saw. However, using an eyewitness as a source of evidence can be risky and is rarely 100% accurate. This can be proven by the theory of the possibility of false memory formation and the question of whether or not a memory can lie.
The five circumstances that affect accuracy of perceptions in identifying strangers is: the distractions, the focus, the stress on the witness, races of the two both strangers and the witness, and the length of time to sit and observe the stranger.
The mistaken recollection of information or the recollection of an event that never happened is known as a false memory (Rajagopal & Montgomery, 2011). The study of false memories has been of interest to cognitive psychologists (Otagaar, Smeets & Scoboria, 2013) for many years as it implies that human memory is vulnerable to the influence of external information, it also implies that our ability to recall events may not always be accurate. One major issue that has arisen with the research on false memories is the argued validity of eyewitness testimony (Wade, Green & Nash, 2011). Eyewitness testimony is the verified report made by someone who witnessed a crime (Wade et.al., 2011). False memories can interfere with the correct recollection of criminal offences which can potentially result in inaccurate accusations of a crime (Wade et.al., 2011). Researchers have been interested in studying false memories to develop a better understanding of how false memories work, and to what extent our memories can be assumed accurate (Jou & Flores, 2013).