Elizabeth Loftus: The fiction of memory
The above link is a video from TED Talks on youtube.com. To summarize the point of the clip, Loftus and Palmer (1974) tested the influence of word selection on eyewitnesses pertaining to a video of a car accident. Participants were asked: how fast was the car going when it contacted/bumped/smashed/etc.
Depending on the word used when asking eyewitnesses to estimate how fast the car in the video was going at the time of the accident, the eyewitness accounts varied. When the word crashed was used, they estimated the vehicle was going over 40 mph. Compared with the word contacted influencing estimates at around 30mph. She concluded that any subtle cues that can hint to interviewer knowledge, can alter the way a witness recalls an event.
In the beginning of the video, Loftus touches upon the major issue behind the vulnerability of our memories. Too often are people wrongfully accused of crimes simply because they share a common feature with the actual culprit, or because the victim was cued with a simple word. “Do you recognize anyone?” is very different from “Do you recognize the one?”. Word play, is a dangerous game that can cause someone their life. It is important that social psychologists and other branches apply their findings of how memory works under various situations and what are the best ways to get accurate accounts without influencing the person remembering. These applied findings can be used to train investigators, police officers, and other law enforcement and legal personnel on proper wording and handling of eyewitnesses and their testimonies.
References
Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), 585-589. doi: 10.1016/S0022-5371(74)80011-3
Tags: Applied social psychology, communication, experiment, eyewitness account, health psychology, psych 424
This is such a strong topic that future professional psychologists need to understand completely. The way questions are worded to clients can suggest that they will change their response as well. Like you said in your post “do you recognize anyone?” is completely different from “do you recognize the one?” If asked questions have a crime, perhaps, asking do you recognize the one can suggest that only one person is involved and there were not any others.
I found the beginning of the TED Talk extremely interesting, although sad. The story of Steve Titus illustrates perfectly the dangers of false memory and also supports the suggestions by Schneider, Gruman, and Coutts about conducting proper interviews. Schneider et al. suggest conducting a cognitive interview. The goal of cognitive interviews is to elicit the most accurate information possible, while asking the witness open-ended, non-leading questions and being mindful not to interrupt (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). By being mindful of the way that questions are phrased as well as being aware of one’s body language and verbal cues, interviews can be conducted in a way that would reduce the chance or prevent a person being convicted of a crime they did not commit.
The consequences of improperly conducting interviews are dire, as illustrated by the Steve Titus story. The police investigating the rape from the TED Talk dropped the ball. Witness identifications are notoriously inaccurate. With that information alone, I am curious how the prosecution secured a guilty verdict in the first place?
References:
Schneider, F., Gruman, J., & Coutts, L. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.