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Memory in everyday life - Eyewitness Testimony.
Question: - From what we know of models of memory, what problems might exist for police officers and juries when witnesses provide eyewitness testimony?
They might forget what they saw because STM can only hold 7 +/- 2 chunks of information.
ReplyDelete- Caitlin
Good point Caitlin - the next candidate might want to think about about the operation of working memory and the role of the central executive too.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with working memory is that each component has a limited capacity so can't hold too much information. The central executive also has limited capacity and so can't manage with too much information. Also, the central executive works by directing attention to particular tasks so if someone isn't paying attention to the people involved then the information; such as what the person was wearing; wouldn't be passed into a memory store and so not into the long-term memory, therefore it couldn't be retrieved in eyewitness testimonys. (I think)
ReplyDelete- Rebecca
One problem may be, Like you said in the lesson, That our minds automatically fill in the blanks in our memory, The problem that'll occur due to this is that you may recall something which may not of even happened and provide false evidence. This will make decisions carried out by police officers & juries harder as they will have to take everything the witness says with a pinch of salt as some of the things the witness is saying may not be entirely true.
ReplyDelete(I get the feeling that I may have completly missed the point. But I thought I'd have a go.) :)
- Matt Martin.
The working memory model's central excecutive decides which information is attended to. This means that a person, may not see a key piece of information. Also, the central excecutive has a limited capacity and may not be able to porcess everything that goes on.
ReplyDeleteThe multi-store model says that for things to be stored in the long term memory it has to be rehearsed. However, this has to be done in 20 seconds.
-Maddie
I think you have all got the point and am impressed that you have used what you already understand to make inferences about potential problems with eye witness testimony. We will go on to see that eye witness testimony can be unreliable.
ReplyDeleteWithin the Working Memory Model, the central executive has a very limited capacity to store things, so at a time of a crime or shocking event possibly only the worst/most dramatic key things will be remembered as they were the most attention grabbing bits that the C.E locked onto. The parts of the crime that the Police may be asking someone to recite that were not so important (to them) or shocking may not have been remembered so people 'fill in the blanks' as such to make the whole event sound better. This makes the validity of eye witness testimony very 'dodgy'. This may also be known as False Memory Syndrome - replacing the bits they dont remember - making the statement not 100% true.
ReplyDeleteWithin the multi-store-model things that grab the minds attention through the sensory stores then pass into the short-term memory however, if they are not rehearsed, as the model supports, they will not enter the long-term memory therefore during the eye witness testimony the witness will not be able to remember every single detail.
Lastly, if in the questioning the police officer or person conducting the interview uses leading questions people may be temped or swayed to answer slightly falsly, as the Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment proved when witnesses were asked to recite a car accident and at what speed the cars collided; if the word 'hit' was used they predicted a lower speed compared to a word such as 'smashed', when a much higher speed was predicted. So leading questions can lead to over exaggeration in the eye witness testimony.
- Tamsin Williams
Would it be possible that a persons memory may have 'shut out' a particular memory, say, if the scene of the crime was a traumatic incident (eg, a murder), the person may not want to, or in fact be able to recall that information. A person may also be able to miss-recall information, as they fear they may get the blame, or say something that makes them seem guilty, even after rehersal, a memory can be altered (like chinese whispers).
ReplyDeleteNot sure if this is on the right track, but i think it could cause a problem?
- Jasmine