Effects Of Eyewitness

When thinking about memory, people usually have the misconception that it is like a filing system. People believe that we can choose any date or experience to go over and be able to remember every single detail of that event accurately. However, this is a false belief. People are influenced by many elements everyday; People are influenced by society and other external influences. Therefore, if people can be influenced by external factors, memories can be altered and make them inaccurate. In the criminal justice system, eyewitness testimonies are extremely valuable in a case. So knowing that memories can be altered and humans are known for error, is it possible that the witnesses testimonies can make an innocent person be held accountable for a crime they did not commit? The answer is yes. There are outside factors that can change the memory of an eyewitness. Consequently, it is important to not convict someone guilty solely based on eyewitness testimonies and more on the actual facts of the case. When someone or something gives you misleading information that leads you to change or distort your memory of an event or experience is known in psychology as the misinformation effect (Myers & DeWall, 2015). This phenomenon usually happens unconsciously and people do not notice it. An example of this is when one is telling a friend about a childhood memory and they fill in parts of the memory

However, I did not know that people’s memories could change because of how someone was interrogated. I also did not know that this was called the misinformation effect. I do know that judicial cases use eyewitness testimonies because it can be very effective if accurate. I also did know that people have been mistakenly convicted of a crime because of inaccurate or insufficient evidence, like eyewitness testimonies or fraudulent DNA