The Complications of Eyewitness Memory

Eyewitnesses have been used for many critical crimes convicted throughout the years, they are a formidable tool in a crime to catch the culprit. As an eyewitness, one recalls what he or she has seen and gives a description of the event. Although these testimonies are useful, there are also an array of complications that follow. Our memory is so resourceful, yet there are an abundance of details that can mix with what the eyewitness initially saw. Furthermore, memory is subject to our unconscious memory and can also be warped by either bias views or an unintentionally clouded memory.

We learned in class that memories aren’t 100% accurate. Memories are sketchy reconstructions of the past, and which may be distorted or include details that did not actually occur. One of the first problems from an eyewitness testimony is reconstructive memories. There are many instances when this memory has interfered with eyewitness testimony. Loftus, a well-known researched and psychologist, with her colleague Jacqueline Pickrell, performed a study on common individuals. They wanted to see if by giving three true statements of events and one false, that the individual would remember the false one or not. Moreover, they had the subjects relative come in and agree with the false story, adding descriptions of the place they were at. After, they had the subjects wrote down more details about the event or they stated if they remembered cleary, vaguely, or not at all. An impressive one third actually claimed they remembered this event that never actually occurred (Loftus, E. F., & Pickrell, J. E, 1995, pg. 14).

It then stated that in two follow up interviews, 25% of individuals reported they still vividly remember the untrue event. There have been multiple other studies that have the same results, proving that it is possible for a person to create a false memory to the eye witness and cause he or she to believe this event actually transpired. As a result, memory is very malleable, it can easily be changed by retroactive interference (new information being clouded with old) and even proactive interference (Old infromation clouding new). Additionally, suggestibility is a huge factor because by saying “yes, good job” to the witness, and then putting false information into their brain telling them it happened, most will eventually believe this is true or they are right.

When an eyewitness sees a culprit committing a crime, immediately they start paying attention and examining the information or act they are seeing, this is a process of encoding. Encoding is very useful because it is the initial taking in of information. There are multiple different ways of encoding, probably the two most used at a crime scene would be visual and auditory. Visual encoding is the process of encoding images into pictures that the brain retains, usually this type of encoding goes to short term memory, and then to long term. As intriguing as it seems, seeing something and making a mental picture at a crime scene is pretty challenging, especially from all of the trauma the person is enduring. “Eyewitness memory can also be impacted by the stress induced by a criminal event, which can negatively affect the encoding of relevant stimuli by elevating psychophysiological responses” (Deffenbacher, Bornstein, Penrod, & McGorty, 2004). Although not completely proven, If the suspect is carrying a weapon, it can also alter the image. In a study by Loftus, she showed the participants different pictures of a customer in a restaurant. In one picture the customer held a gun while in the other the customer held a checkbook. The participants who looked at both pictures were inclined to focus on the man with the gun rather than the man with the checkbook, thus being able to explain the gun in more detail opposed to the man himself. When encoding problems arise, the eyewitness may not be able to fully identify all of the physical traits of the suspect. This can be a huge issue when the eye witness is asked to describe the suspect. One reason is that he or she does not have a perfect picture of the suspect because it could be a sensory memory where the eyewitness only can picture it for a second. ANother way is if the eyewitness gets traits mixed up because he or she did not see vivilly enough.

On the other hand, eyewitnesses could have used dual encoding. This is when someone is using two senses. For example, if a woman is getting raped, she can use his visual appearance and the sound of his voice from telling her what to do as a use of remembering. This can be very helpful, yet the issue could arise of focusing more on one than the other and only remembering segments of one sense, retention.

Recognition is the act of remembering experiences with clues or hints. According to dual-process models, recognition memory is supported by distinct retrieval processes known as familiarity and recollection (Rugg and Curran, 2003, pg. 1). An example would be a multiple choice test where you have other answers and you can use process of elimination. During an eyewitness testimony, eyewitnesses are asked to pick a person out of a set of pictures. Let's say there are 10 pictures, the person starts using his or her memory by retrieving information about the exact looks of the suspect. They can use the process of elimination by using one picture and comparing it to the next. The problem that can arise with this is that the eyewitness may get confused because all of the suspects look so similar, or, like in the video in class about the woman who was raped and picked the wrong man, the suspect could not even be in the pictures.

The acronym “PORN” explains proactive and retroactive differences. In an eyewitness testimony, it is hard for the eyewitness to exactly recall what he or she sees because interference. An old memory can easily interfere with a new, this would be called proactive interference. John A. Bergström, a psychologist who demonstated the first experiment on interference, demanded people to sort out cards into two piles from two decks of cards. Then, the second piles location changed and as a result, sorting was now slower. This proves that the first set of sorting rules interfered with learning the new set (Rieber, Robert W.; Salzinger, Kurt D., eds. 1989, pg. 6).

An American psychologist, known for revisiting Ebbinghaus learning curve, Benton J. Underwood, concluded that much of the forgetting was due to interference from materials that were already learned (Underwood, B. J. , 1957, pg. 64). Retroactive interference is a classic paradigm that was first officially termed by Muller (Muller, G. E.; Pilzecker, A. 1990, pg. 1). Retroactive interference which is when new interferes with old. For example, if the eyewitness is called in for an interrogation a week later, different events in their life can get mixed up with old. This could be very detrimental to a case because false statements may be said accidentally. They may remember things in their long term memory that interact with new causing confusion.