Legal Psychology – Full Summary
Week 1 – Eyewitness Memory
True and false memories in forensic contexts (Blandón-Gitlinl)
In this chapter:
- Key processes and factors that can lead to memory errors in witness accounts
- Protocols to safeguard against inducing errors in the investigative process
- Methods to discriminate between accounts of true and false events
Witness memory: Constructed and reconstructed
Psychologists view memory as a constructive and reconstructive process:
- When someone experiences something, he will acquire pieces of information from
the environment
- These pieces become building material that gets combined to form a memory of the
event
- However, these environmental pieces are not enough and so a person uses other
sources to form a memory: 1) memory, 2) external sources (e.g. other witnesses) and
3) information generated from thinking about the event afterwards
- So while some details might be reliable, others can be unreliable
- This whole process is construction. Retrieving a memory is when reconstruction takes
place > reliability depends on factors during and after the event
Traumatic/highly emotional memories are more likely to be recalled and are often more
reliable, but they involve similar basic cognitive processes of construction and reconstruction
Misinformation effects and false memories
- Misinformation effect – witnesses can be misled by suggestive forces to report false
details of experiences events (a lot of research show that people claim to remember
something that did not happen and even gave specific details)
These details show that their false memories are schema-consistent (e.g.
associating a plane crash with fire)
- People can even ‘recall’ false autobiographical memories
- Research by Shaw and Porter (2015) shows that entire false memories about
committing a crime can also be developed: after being presented with the false
events, participants went through suggestive interview procedures and social
pressure to recall they created a false memory of being involved in the crime
- Rich false memories – false memories that are detailed, have a great deal of emotion
and are confidently held (not easy to identify as false) these memories happen
under strongly suggestive conditions, and simply distorting a memory is easier than
planting/erasing a memory
Factors in memory distortion and false memories
1. Post-event information – information encoutered after the event can influence
subsequent remembering, especially if the original memory was poorly stored
It is difficult to verify the validity of post-event information when you have
reduced information available in your memory, so it is less likely to be rejected
, The information can then be integrated as part of the original experience, this
often happens without the witness realizing
Sources of misinformation:
Co-witness influence – hearing other witnesses’ testimony, can lead to
strenghening your own memory, but it can also contaminate it. Especially
when your own memory is weak and the other person has different
viewpoints of the event
Memory conformity – when the memories of witnesses become more
similar over time (more likely when the witnesses know each other
beforehand)
Social media
Questioning witnesses – method of questioning affects the accuracy and
completeness of memories. People tend to look for schema-consistent
information (e.g. research with cars that ‘bumped’ vs. ‘smashed’ into each
other). Also, repeating questions despite receiving an answer suggest the
witness is wrong. Witnesses might feel pressured to produce a ‘correct
memory’ (forced confabulation effect).
Visuals – visuals (e.g. photographs) can help trigger a true memory, but it
can also have a negative effect. They can – combined with other
suggestive methods – facilitate creating a false memory. Visuals elicit
mental representations that could shape the false memory.
2. Retention interval – the longer the interval between an event and the time witnesses
have to provide an account, the more likely the account will have significant
distortions. Forensically relevant events are often not overlearned, so won’t be be
available for a very long time (like the names of friends).
Factors like when the event occured (childhood/adulthood), how many times the
event occured, etc. are also relevant
3. Imagination/visualization – when people imagine non-experiences events, it is
possible that a process of ‘imagination inflation’ will result in false memories.
Imagining an event can lead to people believing it actually happened.
4. Event plausibility – having knowledge about how an event occurs, possessing
schema-relevant information and whether an event is likely to occur or not all
influence whether a false memory can be implemented
5. Inconsistency within and across interviews – giving inconsistent accounts does not
necessarily indicate inaccuracy. Psychologists categorize inconsistencies as:
Direct contradictions – conflicting responses
Reminisce – more recall, additional details
Omissions – forgetting, less details
Contradictions are the least reliable, because they show poor recollection of
that detail
Cognitive processes in memory errors and false memories
1. Source memory errors – when people remember something, a memory trace is
created. How people decide where the memory comes from (e.g. experience, hearing
it from someone else) is called a ‘source memory judgement’. When people get
confused about the source of their memory, errors can occur.
, This is more likely when they have characteristics of true memories (e.g. vivid,
detailed, etc.)
2. Gist and verbatim memory traces – ‘fuzzy-trace theory’ suggests that when someone
experiences an event, two memory traces are created:
Verbatim memory – detailed, actual memory:
Gist memory – general interpretation memory: basic story the witness tells about
the experience or the beliefs he has about what happened
Less detail
Fades less quickly
Strong memory traces
Because the gist memory involves beliefs, and the verbatim memory
fades more easily, it is more likely someone will create a false memory
related to the gist
3. Individual differences – some people are more likely to create false memories than
others, depending on several factors:
Developmental factors (e.g. age)
Cognitive factors (e.g. intelligence)
Personality (e.g. suggestible)
Psychopathy (e.g. dissociative identity disorder)
Protocols to promote quality memory reports
Cognitive Interview (CI) is for interviewing witnesses of all groups and the National Institute
of Child Health and Human Development protocol (NICHD) is specifically for interviewing
children. They are protocols meant to reduce the likelihood of misinformation effects and
false memories and are based on the same principles:
- Rapport and transfer of control – to break down psychological barriers (e.g.
distressing situation of talking to authorities) rapport-building is important. It means
the legal professional is interested in the person, listens actively and uses respect and
empathy. Also, to transfer control, the professional should suggest that he will be
relying on the witness to play an active role (since they are the one with firsthand
knowledge)
- Question types and memory retrieval techniques – witnesses are asked to mentally
recreate the context in which the event took place. Then the professional asks open-
ended questions to prompt a narrative response. Suggestive techniques are avoided
as much as possible. The use of retrieval strategies can also reduce detrimental
effects on the memory it leads to multiple searches of the same details without
social pressure
The Self-Administered Interview (SAI) has the same core principles as the CI protocol, but is
self-administered by witnesses right after the event.
Protocols to discriminate between true and false memories
Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) and the Reality Monotoring Framework (RM) are two
techniques used to assess true or false memories. They have some common criteria to
assess truthfulness in witnesses’ accounts of events.
With the exclusion of ‘rich false memories’ it is possible to identify memories of
suggested false events, possibly with the help of the CBCA or the RM. However, ore
research is needed to fully understand the constraints in using these techniques.
, The I-I-Eye Method can be used to determine potential suggestibility in interviews.
