How Does Loftus Study False Memories

Eyewitness accounts play a huge role in general in trials and verdicts, but may be unreliable many times, with certain views placed on evidence provided by children. Unreliability may arise from not being able to recount the identity of the accused, the actions and speech occurring during that time, the relationship of individuals towards the person in question, and many

Followed by the lack of corroboration, which is an important aspect in courtrooms, “corroboration will add credibility to the memory and lack of it may raise doubts about the allegations.” Loftus considers that relying on memory is not a valid way of justice; the legal system needs to improve when eyewitness testimonials are used in the courts. Loftus confides as a psychologist that psychological science has taught them about human memory and that the research has revealed the limits of human memory. Adding on, these research findings need to be incorporated in procedures to improve the court system. She hopes readers will acknowledge the fact that the use of memories in a trial can be problematic since they are “dangerous” and can lead to false

These fictionalized accounts of a criminal investigation are provided to the public with the intention of gaining financial rewards through the mass production and consumption of entertainment. In appealing to this entertainment factor a myriad of components are considered in the development of crime films and literature. In Old City Hall, Rotenberg’s inclusion of multiple perspectives allows the readers to follow the thought process of the different components that make up the criminal justice system, including legal counsel, police officers, judges, forensic analysists and witnesses. For instance, Rotenberg mentions the techniques often used by both lawyers and detectives in carefully phrasing questions to get a response from a witness or suspect. “He knew what impressed judges and juries most was not a witness who simply read from the notebook, but one who genuinely tried to remember what it was he had seen and heard and felt” (Rotenberg, 2009, p. 247).

Memories can be misinterpreted easily especially with the passage of time. This is why during interrogations, eyewitnesses’ can feel pressured and choose the wrong suspect such as the Tillman case. Tillman was accused of kidnapping and raping a woman in 1988. DNA analysis of the semen showed that it had come from someone else and he was wrongfully imprisoned for eighteen years (Duke

In the book “Picking Cotton”, the former Burlington Police Chief Mike Gauldin, who was the lead detective on Jennifer’s case, was certainly sure that Ronald Cotton was the guy he was looking for after Jennifer picked him twice (Jennifer, Ronald, Erin 80); also, on the McCallum’s case, the polices also chose to trust eyewitnesses when they did not have enough physical evidences. Furthermore, judges can be wrong sometime. Wise and Safer, who are authors of the report “ what US judges know and believe about eyewitness testimony”, surveyed 160 U.S. judges to determine how much they know about eyewitness testimony on a small test( Wise, Safer, 427-432). However, the survey responds the average judges in the U.S. only 55% correct within 14 questions (Wise, Safer, 431-432). Moreover, most of the judges who were surveyed did not know key facts about eyewitness testimony.

“The two women also provided inconsistent accounts 160 of various details of the incident” Ruby Bates and Victoria Price’s testimonies were highly repugnant, to the extent where there were over 160 contradictions. “No, I don’t recollect if he hit me. I mean yes I do, he hit me.” “Was your last sentence your answer?” “Huh?

PAPER 1: FALSE CONFESSION ASSIGNMENT Legal issues involved in the interrogation of criminal suspects are the leading cause for wrongful conviction of innocent individuals based off of false confessions. The primary motive for police officials is to close a case with a written and verbal confession from a possible suspect. Confessions override evidence if the confession is convincing enough to the jurors. Most people assume that people would not confess to a crime they didn’t commit, but due to the harsh interrogation circumstances, psychological coercion and situation factors, these can influence an innocent individual to confess to a crime they didn’t commit.

After investigators begun to suspect arson was in play, the testimonies turned into accusations and assumption of Willingham’s guilt. David Grann wrote, “Dozens of studies have shown that witnesses’ memories of events often change when they are supplied with new contextual information”, suggesting that after a certain period of time into an investigation, all testimonies should be taken with little confidence (Grann, “Trial by Fire”). If the witnesses and testimonies were taken from individuals who know nothing about the

Johnson states that according to the APA, “it is not possible to distinguish repressed memories from false ones without corroborating evidence” (par. 2). This brings up a critical issue how could the jury decide if a memory was false or a repressed one that was eventually remembered. According to Johnson, the three stages of memory are encoding, Consolidation/Storage, and retrieval (par. 3) An error at any stage of the memory process can lead to the creation of false memories (par. 4). Johnson suggests that under extremely traumatic events false memories have a significant chance of being formed.

The speech from Elizabeth Loftus “The Fiction of Memory” she mentions that she study false memory for almost 30 years. False memory is the things that people remember but didn’t happened or remember it differently than the way they really were. After watch the video “The Fiction of Memory” by Elizabeth Loftus, I realize that false memory can be affect on everyone. In my personal experience; sometime I went to the place that I never been there before, but I will believe that is place I have been when I was child.

The criminal justice system depends majorly on eyewitness identification for investigating and prosecuting crimes. Psychologists have been the only ones who have warned the justice system of problems with eyewitness identification evidence. Recent DNA exoneration cases have corrupted the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest factor contributing to the conviction of many innocent people eyewitness testimonies are not reliable therefor you would assume they would be taken out of court, but instead

Austasia Kapteyn was jailed for giving false testimonies to police and lying to them (Ekert). The author is trying to state that people are starting to take actions on the accounts of false witnesses. A man named Mr. Lacson is trying to solve these problems with false

In your every day, ordinary lives, the credibility one has is important. No vocation requires more skill to assess the credibility of others than in the court system. On any given day a trial judge faces many people whose lives hang in the balance and will likely do anything to keep from being restricted from their freedoms. People will lie, twist the truth, and conveniently remember things differently all to hide the sordid truth. Knowing this, it becomes increasingly apparent that the courts, judges and representatives need to have a keen ability to assess credibility.

This week’s topic was very interesting to learn about how important eyewitnesses can be when a crime and accidents do occur. In the case that was presented in the 60-minute segment of Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson is exactly how legal system can fail us when it comes to the eyewitnesses’ identification testimony and how a person’s perception and memory can be altered. The aspect of psychology and law research from this week’s course material is most relevant to the topic of perception and memory. The memory has different stages the first is encoding the process of entering perception into memory.

One of the limitations is the construction of the memory. The gaining of trust on how much an individual can trust the memory of recollection. While one may not remember what happen in their daily day life, how can one trust this therapy to recollect the memory many years ago. The construction of memory may include good memories and memories which can worsen the client’s life as it can be painful one. The client can take drastic decision such as pulling the person to court after the memories have been recollected.