Seeing and Believing: Common Courtroom Myths in Eyewitness Memory

US courtroom - Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

keywords:
eyewitness identification / memory / myths / common sense

Seeing and Believing: Common Courtroom Myths in Eyewitness Memory

When it comes to understanding eyewitness memory, people’s commonsense views are sometimes consistent with contemporary scientific knowledge – but sometimes they are dangerously adrift. This article aims to unravel some of the common myths that appear in the courts, in the news, and in the awareness of the public. On a mid-summer evening in 1982, in a small town in the southern U.S., 24-year-old Susan1 was walking home, when a man grabbed her, threatened her with a gun, forced her... / more

Can you nonbelieve it: What happens when you do not believe in your memories?

Are old photos accurate reflections of memory, or do they distort?

keywords:
belief / recollection / non-believed memory / trauma / eyewitness

Can you nonbelieve it: What happens when you do not believe in your memories?

Human memory is susceptible to errors and distortions. This may sound cliché (Loftus, 2005), but the practical meaning of this is illustrated by, for example, the devastating effects of mistaken eyewitness identifications (Sagana, Sauerland, & Merckelbach, 2012), the far-reaching consequences of innocents who falsely confess to crimes they never committed (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004), and the tragedy of adults who erroneously come to believe that they recovered very early memories of abuse experiences (Loftus, 1993). As for these alleged ... / more

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