Question

As an eyewitness to a crime, how could you use information from memory distortions to improve your memory for specific details?

Answer 1

Eyewitness Testimony plays an important role in retrieving information from an individual's memory. Sometimes, memory can be difficult to recall and it may be distorted, however, other times it is constructed. Eyewitness testimony means, evidence given by a person who has witnessed a crime. Our judicial system places special emphasis on witnesses in any crime scenarios. It is a misconception that eyewitnesses are accurate. The infomation given by eyewitnesses can easily be swayed by the leading questions presented by the officers or authorities interrogating them. An individual begins to believe that he may have seen something in the act of a crime, when in reality he may have not seen anything like that. This is known as suggestibility.

It is possible for an individual to associate their memory to a wrong source. For instance, an person may claim to have identify the person who committed the crime in the police lineup, but the perpetrator may not even be present in the lineup. The individual mistakes the presence of the perpetrator as his/her face may seem familiar to them and thus, attribute their memory to the wrong source. This could lead to a serious punishment to an innocent individual.

Using information from memory distortions to improve memory for specific details is a little difficult. For instance, the same person in the above example claimed to have identified the person who committed the crime in the police lineup, but the perpetrator was not present in the lineup. The above happened, because she was given additional information, called suggestibility. She instead of retrieving, constructed a memory, due to the additional information provided to her by the officers.