Memory
What is meant by the term, “memory is reconstructive in nature?”
The human memory is reconstructive. The human consciousness does not work like a video recorder, where all the captured actions appear precisely as they were even after a long time. The human memory only remembers the most significant parts of an event. Therefore, due to the absence of information, people tend to fill in the gaps to make more sense of an occurrence.
To make an event coherent, the human memory naturally adds or omits bits and parts, some of which did not happen. For instance, when a person witnesses an event and later given incorrect information about the same event, most of the time they recall the misleading information rather than what they saw.
Memory can get influenced by outside forces. When a person tries to recall an event, the mind is affected by past experiences, beliefs, and interpretation of that particular moment. Therefore, the brain reconstructs the memory in such a way that it aligns with personal opinion, past experiences or interpretation of the moment.
The term “memory is reconstructive in nature” means that human memory is prone to bias. Mind is more of a reconstruction that retains the summary rather than details of the experience. As such, memories are more of a combination of old memories, expectations, personal beliefs, implanted memories or misinformation.
What conditions reduce the reliability of eyewitness testimonies?
Eyewitness testimony is regarded as the most reliable source of information by many juries. However, many of them do not consider the reconstructive nature of human memory. Several factors reduce the reliability of eyewitness testimonies.
The stress of witnessing a violent attack affects memory accuracy. More often than not, people who experience traumatizing events have post-traumatic stress disorder; a psychological condition that interferes with judgment and perception of reality. When a person witnesses a traumatizing event, for instance, a bank robbery, they tend to take positions that distract them from looking at the assailants. Furthermore, such criminals force all people to keep their heads down and threaten those who dare to look up. In line with Albright (2017), the internal state of a witness may interfere with their memory. Therefore, a witness who experiences a highly traumatic event may not give the most accurate detailed account of the event. As such, stress or anxiety can reduce the reliability of an eye witness.
The reconstructive nature of human memory can render a witness unreliable. As discussed earlier, reconstructive memory is when the mind adds or omits parts of an event to make it more coherent. Therefore, when an eyewitness is trying to recall the exact happenings of the event, their memory naturally adds or removes bits of the original story to make it more believable. Mostly, people store information that is important to them. After that, people reconstruct the event to conform to their personal beliefs. According to Neuschatz, Wetmore &Gronlund (2015), memories are fluid entities that change, sometimes dramatically. Every time a person revisits an event, the mind is more likely to change. To that end, reconstructive memory reduces the reliability of a witness.
Weapon focus can also reduce the reliability of an eye witness. Weapon focus occurs when the victim of a crime is faced with an individual carrying a weapon. The victim, who later becomes the eyewitness, focuses most of their attention to the gun rather than the carrier of the firearm and other observable things in the event. In line with Albright (2017), highly emotional events narrow focus. Therefore, an emotionally aroused witness will pick off fewer contextual cues than a witness in a normal situation. Besides, in high emotions such as fear and anxiety, the witness will concentrate on the object that stimulates their emotions. For instance, in a robbery case where the assailant was armed with a gun, the victims cooperate with the assailant and pay more focus on the weapon rather than the assailant. In a similar situation, where the assailant is unarmed, the witnesses have more courage to focus on the assailant and can correctly identify them in a lineup. Thus, the presence of a weapon during a criminal activity lowers the credibility and reliability of an eye witness.
Another reason that makes eyewitnesses unreliable is that sometimes individuals tend to see what they expect to see. There is a temporary expectation that affects the way a situation gets perceived by a witness. In a case where the witness only witnessed the event for a brief time, their testimony lacks credibility because of the temporal perception of illusions. For instance, when a person sees a crime for a brief moment and does not get a clear picture of what happened, they are most likely to conclude on who the criminal was based on their expectations. Hence, temporal expectations are capable of altering perception.
Furthermore, the testimony of an eyewitness may be rendered unreliable due to compromise memories. When describing an event, some people tend to compromise between what they were told and what they saw. In line with Albright (2017), vision gets plagued by noise from many natural sources, some associated with the structure of the visual environment, some inherent to the optical and neuronal processes involved and some reflecting sensory content not relevant to the goals of the observer, for instance, a distracting sign or a loud sound. Due to such distractions, it is common for an eye witness to trust his observations as far as the view of others can match them. In the case where observation of a witness does not match up to the observation of other witnesses, it is likely for them to suppress their comment since they are not confident because the other witnesses did not observe a similar occurrence. As such, it is advisable to interview witnesses separately and prevent them from discussing the crime before getting thoroughly interviewed.
Controversies regarding the therapy used to recover repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse
Recovery of repressed memory of childhood sexual abuse is a fiercely debated topic due to the controversies surrounding the procedure. According to McDonald (2017), Freud first theorized about the links between hysteria, childhood sexual abuse, and memory; he proposed that the cause of hysteria was abuse in childhood by adults and that subsequent repression of the event served as a defense mechanism to remove memories of the experience from consciousness. Therefore, it is possible for a person to repress memories and forget abusive childhood memories. However, controversies are surrounding the techniques used to recover repressed memories.
One controversy is that many people are familiar with the concept of recovered memories, therefore, creating potential bias. Some of the therapy sessions are conducted under pressure for instance when the person is a crucial witness to a crime. Therefore, to avoid stress, some people use their prior knowledge of recovered memories to create a false memory. As suggested by Freud, children abusive memories as a defense mechanism and therefore, they disassociate themselves from a memory. Undue pressure to recall the events may push the person to create a false memory to relieve them of the load.
Another controversy is the use of suggestive language by therapists. Some therapists implant memories into the minds of their patients to aid their recovery. Some therapists, however, argue that some patients cannot recall their repressed memories unless they are triggered to remember. Therefore, throw theories of what could have happened and drawn the patient into aligning with one of the approaches. However, this mode of recovering memories is highly controversial because human consciousness is reconstructive. It is natural for the mind to add or omit parts of an event to gain coherence. As such, there is no assurance that the memory recovered using suggestive language is a genuine or a false memory.
Also, there are no standard methods of verifying the accuracy of recovered memories. Some therapists rely on a list of symptoms to conclude whether a person had an abusive childhood or not. Some therapists strongly believe that people who harbor symptoms such as depression or anxiety have a history of childhood trauma. Such symptoms can be as a result of other conditions, and as such, it is not an assurance that a patient suffered sexual abuse in their childhood,
Besides, human memory gets altered by false information. In a case where a person is presented with incorrect information after witnessing an event, the person may include the wrong information when narrating the incident they saw. Therefore, in the case of a repressed childhood memory, the patient might give inaccurate information after several encounters with other similar events.
References
Albright, T. D. (2017). Why eyewitnesses fail. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(30), 7758-7764.
McDonald, A. (2017). Recovered Memory of childhood sexual abuse: an overview of research evidence and guidelines. PACFA occasional research papers , 1-25.
Neuschatz, J. S., Wetmore, S. A., & Gronlund, S. D. (2015). Memory Gaps and Memory Errors. Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource, 1-13.