Eyewitnesses are used in criminal cases across the country every single day. An eyewitness testimony is an individual who was present at the crime and is giving their rendition of what happened in court before the judge, jury, and lawyers. They are questioned and made to retell their experiences of what happened. Their eyewitness accounts can be used to identify criminals as well as provide details of a crime.  However, how accurate are these memories?

Since 2012, there have been 341 people exonerated in the US through the use of DNA evidence. 75% of these cases had involved an eyewitness testimony in their conviction (Goldstein p. 231). The worrisome part of this fact is that there are so many misconceptions about how memory works and it is leading to wrongful convictions and innocent people spending years in prison. Several studies have been conducted where individuals watch videos of crimes or staged crimes and are asked to identify the criminal from a photo line up. One of the studies involved participants watching a security camera footage where the gunman was in frame for approximately eight seconds. The participants were then given several photos and asked to select the perpetrator. They all chose a photo of who they thought the gunman was even though none of the photos were actually of him (Goldstein p  232). This shows how difficult it can be to be able to accurately and correctly identify someone that you see very quickly in recorded footage. This also does not even take into account the emotions that one would experience when witnessing a crime happen in real time in front of them. Fear, adrenaline, anxiety, and any other emotion could cloud someone’s judgement and make it more difficult for them to recount what they saw at a later time when they are removed from the situation.

Another factor that could tamper with the validity of an eyewitness testimony is familiarity. In a case of robbery described in the textbook, a railroad employee incorrectly identified a bystander as the robber simply because he said he ‘looked familiar’ (Goldstein p. 232). This could have led to the arrest of someone who was innocent simply because someone associated the familiarity of an individuals face with them being the perpetrator of a crime. Finally, another factor is error due to suggestion. There could be holes in an eyewitnesses memory and certain phrasing of questions or comments could persuade an eyewitness to fill in those gaps with potentially fabricated details. This is often why we hear objections to ‘leading questions’ in the courtroom meaning that the question could be leading the witness to convey information that would benefit the prosecution or defense, and is not entirely accurate.

A tragic example of how eyewitness testimonies cannot always be trusted is the case of Troy Davis. Troy was sentenced to death in Georgia and charged with the murder of an off duty police officer named Mark MacPhail. Troy claimed he was innocent for two decades while he awaited execution on death row. His trial was determined solely by eyewitness accounts and testimony, however in the time between his sentencing and his execution there were seven of the nine eyewitnesses who recanted their testimonies. Their testimonies claimed that they had witnessed Davis as the gunman, however they later stated that their testimony was coerced by police. This unfortunate occurrence resulted in the death of an innocent man and is just one of hundreds examples of false eyewitness memories and testimonies (FacingSouth).

References:

Sturgis, Sue, and Sue Sturgis @sue_sturgis Sue is the editorial director of Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies. Email Sue. “Troy Davis Case Shows Need for Eyewitness Identification Reform.” Facing South, 9 June 2016, https://www.facingsouth.org/2011/09/troy-davis-case-shows-need-for-eyewitness-identification-reform.html.

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: connecting mind, research, and everyday experience. Cengage Learning.

Memory is defined as the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present(Goldstein pg. 120). Past events that we experience can play into how we respond to future or present events and happenings. Short term memory is defined as staying with us for brief periods for about 10 to 15 seconds. These memories are not repeated in our mind over and over again so therefore they are short term memories. Long term memory our memories that we store over the course of a lifetime or longer than brief short term memories are stored. We also experienced some thing called procedural memories which are actions like remembering how to ride a bike or how to drive a car. Semantic memory is another form of long-term memory which involves the recognition of names or addresses and being able to identify different people, places, or things because it has been stored for the long term in our memory (Goldstein pg. 120).

In 1968 Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin introduced a flow chart called the modal model of memory which demonstrated three different types of memory. First there was sensory memory which which is the first stage of memory and essentially only holds information for a few seconds or fractions of seconds. This information is about sensory happenings around the individual. The second type of memory is short term which holds seven to ten items for 15-20 seconds. The third and final proposed type of memory is long term. This is the remembering of large amounts of information for years or even decades (Goldstein pg. 121).

Since short term memory is so fleeting, it is easy to assume it is less important than other types of memory. However this couldn’t be further from the truth. Short term memory is responsible for everything we are aware of and know about during a present moment. A great misconception about short term memory is that it can last for a long period of time, however as mentioned earlier it is determined that it only lasts for 15-20 seconds or even less (Goldstein pg. 127). Many studies have been conducted to understand how much can be recalled from short term memory and the duration in which it lasts. Lloyd Peterson and Margaret Peterson conducted a study using letters and counting backwards. The participants were given a set of letters and then were instructed to count backwards from a certain number and after being told to stop they were asked to recall the letters. The findings of this study were that participants recalled about 80% of the three letter groups if they had only been counting for 3 seconds. The number dropped to the participants only remembering about 12% of the three letter groups after counting for 18 seconds (Goldstein pg. 128).

In a book by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee titled “Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life” she discusses how she suffered a devastating stroke at the age of 33 which left her without short term memory and also the loss of the ability to access meaning or connection between types of long term memory. In her book she discusses how this stroke has impacted even the smallest aspects of her life down to when she cooks dinner. She details how making a simple dish like pasta has become a difficult task as she struggles to remember what she is doing and why she was doing it. She writes about how she had to keep note of everything she did in a notebook down to who she spoke to that day, what was discussed, things she did, and so on. Over the years her brain became to form connections again and she regained the ability to remember things from one minute to the next.

This story is an excellent example of how often we use short term memory and may not even realize it. In the book Lee discusses how when cooking she would begin chopping onions and by the time she finished she was unable to remember why she had been chopping them. I’ve also witnessed it firsthand when my brother had a seizure and was unable to remember it even happening shortly after. The EMT’s asked him basic questions about how he had been feeling and even his age and he struggled to remember anything. It can be an incredibly frustrating experience to be unable to remember something that just happened. We use our short term memory every day constantly, and it helps us stay on track and go about our day with purpose. The loss of it can lead to many difficulties and frustrations we can it even begin to imagine until we have lost it.

References

Goldstein, E. B. (2015). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience 4th ; student ed.). Cengage Learning.

Loria, Kevin. “A New Book Tells the Story of What It’s like to Lose Your Short-Term Memory at the Age of 33.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 16 Feb. 2017, https://www.businessinsider.com/anterograde-amnesia-christine-hyung-oak-lee-memoir-2017-2.

Double dissociation is a phenomenon that occurs when damage is done to the brain that results in one functions absence while another function remains present. Double dissociation has been demonstrated through examples of facial or object recognition. For example, an individual may be able to recognize objects but not the face of a loved one. This comes as a result of damage to specific regions of the brain (Goldstein 2015, p. 40). Double dissociation is typically discovered through the use of neuroimaging or the use of neuropsychology testing (Double Dissociation).

This kind of neuropsychological research came from studying patients who had suffered from strokes that resulted in brain damage. Paul Broca’s breakthrough study theorized that the left frontal lobe is the area of the brain controlling speech. His proposal came after working with a patient who suffered a stroke that damaged that area of the brain, and was subsequently unable to say the word “tan.” Carl Wernicke later worked with patients who sustained damage to the temporal lobe and discovered that while their speech had fluency and grammatical correctness, it lacked coherence. Based off these two findings, they concluded that one area of the brain was responsible for producing speech and the other was for comprehending (Goldstein 2015, p. 39). Further studies were conducted to find similar connections between visual stimuli as well.

Prosopagnosia is an inability to recognize faces that results from brain damage to the  temporal lobe in the lower right side of the brain. In this instance, individuals can see and recognize a face but they cannot associate that face with the person it may belong to. This also is applied to their own perception of themselves. They can see their face in a reflection,  but lack the ability to recognize themselves. They appear to be a stranger looking back at them (Goldstein 2015 p. 40.)

I saw this demonstrated firsthand while volunteering at a nursing home. The majority of the residents there were dementia patients. There were many residents I worked with who lacked the ability to recognize the faces of their family members who would visit. Some would recognize the feeling of love they were meant to have directed towards a loved one, but if shown an image of that person they would be unable to identify them. Other residents would struggle to speak coherently. They would be able to understand what was said to them, but lack the ability to form a sentence to respond.

I experienced the frustration that this kind of brain damage can have on an individual. There was a strong sense of isolation with this community as they could not recognize loved ones or be able to formulate a sentence when they still had an understanding of language itself.

References:

Goldstein, E. B. (2015).  Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (4th ; student ed.).  Cengage Learning.

“Double Dissociation.” Psychology Wiki, psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Double_dissociation.