Research provided by the Innocence Project shows that Hundreds of people are accused of crimes they have never committed just because of eyewitness testimony and factors which distorted memory. Can we even trust our memory after knowing so many innocent people have been convicted? Coming back to the question: How does crime affect memory? Looking at the studies of Ronald Cotton and Bennett Barbour, they tell us that crime distorts the memory of a victim. In both cases, the victim identified the wrong person as their assailant.
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.
It is unlikely that social consequences of false memories can be avoided. Elizabeth Loftus was intrigued to study false memories, and is perhaps personally responsible for subsequent developments throughout the history of false memories. Some of this history addresses various theories aimed at isolating how or why false memories occur. These include Source Monitoring Framework, Activation Monitoring Theory, Fuzzy Trace Theory, and strategies for persuasion which can lead to the development of false memory. Such persuasion leads to the present discussion concerning how persuasion in the judicial system has created false confessions and wrongful eyewitness testimonies, due to the Misinformation Effect.
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
Loftus discussed how memory works differently and gave examples of how people communicate the information about their experiences and can change the memory based on the person memories. Loftus did many studies of psychotherapy and in the studied; she planted false memories on the subjects. She found many interesting things based on what she studies and she thinks that false memory is not bad, but what she did learn is that just because people tell you things with expression and important details it does not mean it happened (Loftus, 2013). Related
At first, I was unsure about Loftus and defending criminals who might not have commented any crime according to her. But after reading about the case of Ellen Bass it has stricken me that she has all reason to defend some of the criminals. Memories are repressed and suddenly after decades, months, days or years are retrieved but how can you recall every detail? Surely you can 't unless you have a photogenic memory.
Laurie Halse Anderson illuminates a dark but utterly realistic world throughout her novels. Anderson shares common ideas of adolescents being the victims of the world; who each overcomes traumatic events. All three novels are written in first person perspective, and shares a common theme of survival. Anderson’s marvelous writing style attracts the readers and cages them into the book, leaving her audience to feel sympathy, creating familiarity, as well as developing personal connections to the protagonists. Throughout the novels, Wintergirls, Speak, and The Impossible Knife of Memory, Anderson demonstrate the emotional struggle of teenagers, who conquer their battles from their own experiences as adolescents.
The Mystic Chords of Memory The attempt Abraham Lincoln took to make all units of America civil and protected was listed and told in his first Inaugural Address. As the confederates and the Union were unable to come to terms with Lincoln’s statements, Civil War began soon after the Address was published. When president Lincoln wrote his speech to share with all units of the country, his main goal was to keep all states peaceful and together as one. While listing all rules and laws that were in place during the 1860’s, Abraham Lincoln’s famous statement beginning with “The Mystic Chords of Memory” stood out to others and created multiple effects for both Northern and Southern areas of the states.
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.
Sydney Caparaso Mrs. Sherry AP Psychology 27 August 2015 Witness for the Defense: Elizabeth Loftus Human memory may not, as many think, resemble a permanent tape of our lives ' events, replayable at a whim. Elizabeth Loftus discusses her theories of memory and accuracy in her book, Witness for the Defense. Loftus has testified as an expert witness in more than 150 court cases, several of which she sites, discussing the different ways a memory can be fallible.
As I read “ Memory and Imagination” by Patricia Hampl I was thrown by the truth of the story. The first part of the story was how Patricia recalled her father playing the violin and then taking her to ST. Luke’s school. There she mets a nun thats shows her what she needs to know how to play the piano as that was the instrument there. After her session with the nun she I guided in the direction of her a pain to play as to practice.
Alexander the Great’s inexorable ten year conquest of the Persian Empire was a conquest motivated by a number of reasons; finance, revenge, opportunity, expansion and personal zealotry being amongst those debated by modern historians. In his attempts to garner Greek support for the conquest, Alexander veiled his true motivations under the guise of nationalistic revenge. In truth however, Alexander's reasons for the invasion of the Persian Empire lay in financial necessity, territorial expansion, his desire to stand up to his mythological and biological ancestry and the opportunity presented by the relatively weakened state of the Persian empire. 1. Revenge for the Persian invasions of Greece (281)
How has colonialism affected our world through its own propagation of stereotypes? In today’s present, images of stereotypes are ubiquitous as they are distributed again and again by the media. The media in itself hands out these caricatures of colored women and men, while presenting complex shows of the white man. We see it in the three works of “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar, “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie, and “Pearl of the Orient” by The Jam Handy Organization. In this, stereotypes recur as an overall theme and its interaction with the “white man” or the oppressor.
The biological approach to the basis of memory is explained in terms of underlying biological factors such as the activity of the nervous system, genetic factors, biochemical and neurochemicals. In general terms memory is our ability to encode, store, retain and recall information and past experiences afterwards in the human brain. In biological terms, memory is the recreation of past experiences by simultaneous activation or firing of neurons. Some of the major biopsychological research questions on memory are what are the biological substrates of memory, where are memories stored in the brain, how are memories assessed during recall and what is the mechanism of forgetting. The two main reasons that gave rise to the interest in biological basis of memory are that researchers became aware of the fact that many memory deficits arise from injuries to the brain.
Chapter 1: Introduction Back in 500 BC, Simonides, who was a Greek lyric poet, developed a system of mnemonic techniques based on images and places, which is the method of loci. The method is invented when he was able to recognize the unidentified dead body by recalling the places, which they had been sitting at the table (Yates, 1966). The word “mnemonic” is derived from the Ancient Greek word “mnēmonikos” and is related to “Mnemosyne”. It refers to the meaning of the name of the goddess of memory in Greek mythology (Medina-De la Garza, García-Hernández, & de los Ángeles Castro-Corona, 2013).
