Memory Errors in Eye Witnesses

When is your mother’s birthday? What outfit did you wear yesterday? Did you remember to turn the stove off before you left the house? You can probably come up with the answer to these question and many others thanks to an impressive memory system in the brain. The capacity of knowledge our brain is capable of holding overtime is impressive. Yet, research has found that while we may be confident in questions regarding to memory, you may be surprised how often our memory is wrong.

Perhaps one of the most important applications of this memory failing phenomenon is how impactful it can be in the case of eye witnesses. For decades, criminal trials have placed incredible pressure on eye witnesses to accurately recount crimes. The consequences of these accounts can cost an innocent man years in prison or possibly worse, a guilty man to walk away without penalties. These memory errors can occur due to many reasons from inability to recall the memory, attentional deficits during the event, and weapon focus which refers to an attentional focus on a weapon in a situation therein taking away concentration and reliability about the full nature of the crime (McLeod, 2009). Luckily, in today’s society juries and judges also have reliable DNA evidence to supplement their verdicts.

A most recent and prominent example of the influence of eyewitness testimonies is that in the case of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, MO.  60 eye witness testimonies were considered by the 13 jurors before deciding not indict Officer Darren Wilson. Riots formed all over the country in response to what was believed to be a racially biased hearing, when so many people accounted that Michael Brown was unarmed and fleeing when shot and killed by Officer Wilson. Yet, DNA backs Officer Wilson’s account that he and Brown wrestled over possession of the fire arm, “The wound on Brown’s thumb contained “microscopic matter from the barrel” of the officer’s pistol, according to the report. Wilson’s other five shots hit Brown from the front, contradicting some witness reports that Brown had been running away from the officer when he was shot”( Upper, 2014). DNA has proven over time to be incredibly reliable, so whether or not the eye witnesses in the case were just friends of Michael Brown , experiencing weapon focus, or incorrectly recalled memories; thanks largely in part to forensic evidence, Officer Wilson was able to walk away from very serious accusations despite confliction eyewitnesses.

 

References

Upper, G. (2014). New Autopsy Report Changes Everything About the Michael Brown Shooting. Conservative Tribune. Retrieved from http://conservativetribune.com/new-autopsy-michael-brown/.

McLeod, S. A. (2009). Eyewitness Testimony. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/eyewitness-testimony.html

 

4 thoughts on “Memory Errors in Eye Witnesses

  1. Cassie Renee Miller

    Eyewitness testimonies, I believe, can fall to a number of influences creating memory error. Whether it’s the testimony of a bystander or the testimony of a victim. There is a high emotional involvement when witnessing behavior that is non-normative, for example a robbery or assault (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, 221). Putting aside memory errors due to familiarity and errors due to suggestibility, would it not be possible to also have a memory error due to schemas and scripts we have formed during our lifetime? Since schemas are our way of organizing information about our social world which help influence what we notice and remember, I believe this could possibly influence our perceptions of what took place (Aronson, Wilson, Akert, 49). The scripts could further influence our perception since we use scripts as a “sequenc[ing] of actions” that typically take place (Goldstein, 219).
    If you grow up in a social environment where there is a divide between police and the citizens to where police are looked at as unhelpful or abuse their power, then is it possible this information could influence your interpretation of an altercation between these two parties? If this type of behavior is witnessed over time, then I think it’s possible to create a script that dictates this sequence of events. When we witness a crime or something out of the ordinary, we typically don’t see everything; this leaves room for inferences and when we recall what took place it’s possible add these inferences, unknowingly, into the memory creating an error.
    While schemas and scripts influencing perception is just a theory of mine, the fact remains that eye-witness testimonies can fall prey to memory error through errors due to weapon focus, familiarity by mistakenly identifying a bystander as the perpetrator, and of course by suggestion (Goldstein, 227-228). Undoubtedly the case you mentioned above is tragic and sadly we may never know exactly what happened due to memory errors. But as you mentioned, thankfully DNA and other means of establishing a timeline of events can assist with the legalities.

    References:

    Goldstein, Bruce E. Cognitive Psychology 3rd edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. 2011. Print.

    Aronson, Elliot, Wilson, Timothy D., Akert, Robert M. Social Psychology 8th edition. Pearson. 2013. Print.

  2. Laura J Eisenhower

    I felt compelled to reply to this post as I am currently reading about eyewitness testimony error in my social psychology class. We learned that people generally make mistakes in eyewitness accounts due to issues in the three stages of memory processing: Acquisition, Storage, and Retrieval (Wilson, Akert, Aronson, 2013, p. 434). Some of these errors are due to emotional arousal, others are influenced by what we think we may witness if we already have perceived a scenario.

    Such was the case with Alan, a man who had not seen his elderly neighbor in several days. Fearing she had passed due to her age, he went to her home to investigate after receiving no answer after calling her home phone. He decided to try to enter the home through a side window after no one answered the door. He eventually found her lying dead on the bedroom floor. Obviously disturbed by the tragic discovery, he immediately ran back to his home to call the police. A detective came to survey the scene, who was amazed that Alan failed to notice his elderly neighbor had actually been robbed and strangled to death with a belt. Alan had mentally prepared himself to view a scene that simply implied his neighbor had died of old age, so when he saw her lying on the floor he assumed that is what had happened, needing no further investigation (Wilson, Akert, Aronson, 2013, p. 435). Alan’s story is a prime example of acquisition error.

    Storage issues occur when our current memories become intertwined with others, or similar events that occur around the same time or shortly after the original memory. This is why two individuals often remember the same event differently, as they are influenced by other memories and misleading events. If someone suggests an incorrect part of a memory that still seems logical, we may associate it with our own memory, thus altering its original format (Wilson, Akert, Aronson, 2013, p. 437). Ultimately, these altered memories are retrieved incorrectly, thus leaving room for error during eyewitness accounts.

    Emotions also tend to cloud memory processing, as we observed in Alan’s case. He was so disturbed with his discovery and overcome with the confirmation of his fear, he neglected to process and correctly retrieve the circumstances and visual cues of the crime scene. It is interesting to note that earlier in Chapter 8, we were informed that “emotionally charged events are easier to remember” (Goldstein, 2011, p. 208). Yet, when it comes to emotionally charged events such as witnessing or being involved in crimes, our heightened emotions often fail the clarity of our memory recall. As stated by Goldstein, we must remember that “memory is fallible” (Goldstein, 2011, p. 227). We also must consider all misinformation with which we are presented after the incident, thus often misleading an event we were originally so sure was correctly encoded.

    References:

    Wilson, Akert, Aronson, 2013. Social Psychology. New York: Pearson.
    Goldstein, 2011. Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. Belmont: Wadsworth.

  3. Brianna Lynn Burns

    This was very interesting and I totally see where you are coming from in your research! I do agree with it that eyewitness memory isn’t always right and there are always different factors that contribute to that. For example, the event that happens could be so traumatic, that it could cause a person to see what it really happening, but when asked to recall it, it comes out a completely different way. I knew that they were usually inaccurate but didn’t know that it was THIS inaccurate. Also, the example that you chose is a really big thing in our news today! So I think overall this is a good example with great information to support your answers. And then they found that the cop is indeed innocent makes things a different ball game for a lot of people. Our memory is a tricky thing to study in my opinion. And that it is something that can be interesting to learn more about in different ways! Overall this was a great idea!

  4. clb5918

    Interesting paper, Alison. I was shocked to learn just how inaccurate eyewitness reports actually are while reading chapter 8 of our text book. Often times we are so certain of what we believe to have seen or heard. Even the little things, that we become so certain of, I often catch my mother saying, “I swear I put the mail right here”, later to find it in another place that only she would have put it. Our memory can really play tricks on us and when it comes to identifying people at a crime scene the consequences can be life changing. Did you watch the 60 minutes movie posted by the professor? It was really a fascinating story about an eyewitness admitting to her absolute certainty in identifying her rapist in a line up who turned out to be an innocent man (after serving many years in prison). We are lucky to have developing sciences like DNA testing to help with these errors but like you pointed out in the case of Michael Brown, eyewitness accounts are still taken into account and believed to be true by many. It would seem helpful if memory error and false recall research was made aware to the public. I find myself now much more skeptical of what others tell me they saw and even what I myself recall as I have learned just how susceptible we are to memory error.

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