The Positives and Negatives of Reconstructive Memory - Essay Example

RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY Introduction Retrieval of information refers to the subsequent re-accessing of events of the past which were formerly encoded and stored in the brain. In simple terms it is often referred to as remembering (Dijck, 2007). During this process, the brain reorganizes and replays a pattern of neutral activity that was initially generated in response to a particular event, echoing the brain’s perception of the real event. These replays are might not be identical to the original but are integrated with the experiences of the current situations, hence making the process of remembering to be an act of creative re-imagination (Sanderson, 2006). Making a clear understanding of how this works, it is better to be able to relate how information is encoded, stored and later on retrieved to help a person in perception of the outside world. By studying eyewitness testimony psychologists have been able to see the causes of inaccurate testimonies. Reconstructive memory loss is common to arise due to anxiety when being questioned by the authorities. Eyewitnesses are critical in solving crimes in many cases, although it is widely used there are several issues with eyewitness identification (Wells & Olson, 2003). It seems from the research and studies conducted reconstructive memory is a factor that affects eyewitness testimonies and as mentioned it causes many problems with identifying a suspect of a crime. Literature review From this, the main focus of the following literature review will be to discuss the theories and studies conducted into why reconstructive memory occurs and how it affects eyewitness testimonies. In particular, the literature will focus on Bartlett and Loftus and Palmer’s studies into reconstructive memory with evidence from other researchers suggesting that reconstructive memory affects eyewitness testimony. Bartlett (1932) first proposed the idea of reconstructive memory. His idea was that memory is unlike a video recorder that can be played back, and this idea is currently used widely in eyewitness testimony. In addition, Bartlett asserted that individuals recall of events is often inaccurate as reconstruction and distortion of information occurs within the mind, often when individuals are put into pressured situations where it requires a large amount of using the memory (Van Der Veer 2001). From this proposal, Bartlett went on to conduct many experiments testing the reconstructive memory. Bartlett, conducted experiments into reconstructive memory. The aim of the study was to measure the unfamiliarity of participants recall, the British participants were told a traditional American tale, also known as “the war of ghosts”. Point being, the story included words and ideas the British participants would have no familiarity with. With this in mind, Bartlett allowed a 20 hour period to elapse before requesting the participants to recall what they remember of the story, after the first initial recall, the participants were asked to recall the story several times. From the results, it was found that the participants alternated the original story in various ways. On the other hand, the story was adjusted each time making it increasingly similar to a traditional English story; something their memory would be more familiar with and comfortable with (Alba & Hasher 1983). In support to this researcher Larsen & Thompson (1995), also found through showing participants public news events, when recalling the events they were able to recall mostly events that was occurring in their country compared to recalling events that occurred in other countries. These two studies represent how reconstructive memory is most useful when being represented with memories that the individual can relate to in terms of as mentioned, news events that occurred in their country, the same with Bartlett’s tales the participants altered the story to something they were more familiar with. In terms of relating to eyewitness testimony, these studies open the doors to how an individual many reconstruct certain events to possibly something they imagine to be true in their mind. Although this seems accurate many are criticizing of Bartlett’s theory in particular. In terms of Bartlett and his theories, there have been various criticisms into his idea of reconstructive memory. Gauld & Stephenson (1967) made many criticisms of the “war of ghosts” experiment, stating that the outcome may not be consistent. Moreover, individuals were either able to relate to or not relate to the story. It seems these researchers had their criticisms for Bartlett’s experiment; however the theory still remains relevant to how individuals presently are with eyewitness testimonies. In addition Roediger, Bergman & Meade (2000) noted that Bartlett’s choice of stimulus material was often far from ‘ecologically valid’ in the ‘war of ghosts’ experiment. Since Bartlett experiments into reconstructive memory in 1932, following researchers discovered the connection between reconstructive memory and eyewitness testimony. Loftus & Palmer 1974 conducted an experiment to test the reliability of eyewitness testimony. First, the 150 participants, who were separated into three groups they were shown footage of a car accident. Group 1 was asked “how fast were the cars going when they collided with each other?’ Group 2, were asked the same question excluding the word hit and instead being replaced with smash. Lastly group 3 was not asked anything. In terms of the experiment into reconstructing memory and how the individuals reacted a week after, it is found that through use of wording it differently, individuals would build an idea up in their head that there was smashed glass, which was their minds way of attempting to recall information from the accident (Loftus 2011). Although Loftus and Palmer experiments have been proven to be successful in explaining eyewitness testimony, many criticisms have been made. Researcher Neisser (1982) reported that due to lack of participant variety, cannot be viewed as applicable as the participants were all students, which may of caused the results to be invalid. In support to criticism Costandi (2013) feels the results may be invalid also. However, although there are many criticisms to the experiment, it seems it has come very far in terms of explaining how reconstructive memory effects a witness statement. Further research that supports the idea of why memory is affected and reconstructed has been done over the years. Researcher Mori (2008) found an interesting phenomenon where they were capable of serving as experts regarding a defendant’s confession in terms of a criminal case. Moreover, the researchers found that his real experience contrasted his commitment to the crime he had committed. It seems the defendant did not actually commit the crime but when put under pressure with questioning, he admitted to the crime, even though he did not commit it, it was simply a case of reconstructing a story in the mind. This study could explain why often suspects are wrongly accused and often admit to crimes. This could be due to emotional stress as found there is substantial evidence to suggest that emotional stress effects the accuracy of eyewitness testimony (Christianson, 1992). In support to the statement that emotional stress is a factor that affects the accuracy of eyewitness testimony researcher, Kuehn (1974) studied the idea of how emotional stress can affect an individual’s memory. Their experiment involved analyzing police reports to do with victims of a traumatic event. First, it involved 2 victims of homicide, 22 rapes, 15 assaults and 61 robberies. Resultantly, it was found that victims of robberies were more sustainable to providing detailed information of the event, compared with rape and assault victims, the victims of the more serious crimes attempted to reconstruct ideas in their mind of what they thought the suspect looked like. This has occurred in many situations, Wells et al (1998) also through experiments on individuals in the same sort of situation, and also produced similar results for the more serious crimes. To add to this, many interviews have also been done with police officers about questioning, and they agree that emotional stress is a factor that affects many outcomes of prosecution. However, the officers stated that retracing steps of the crimes with the witnesses is a successful way often of gathering the correct evidence needed (Wise, Safer & Maro, 2011). Effective encoding, storing and retrieving of information are determined by the schemas that are involved. Schemas enable a person to encode and store the central meaning of the new information without necessarily remembering the precise details, unless perhaps the details were particularly unusual, hence saving the memory resources (Prozan, 1997).Moreover, they help us in integration, interpretation as well as normalizing the information for easy understanding; through this we are able to fill in the missing aspects in an aspect of retrieving the information. Contrastingly, Researcher’s Yuille & Tollerstrup (1992) adopted a different approach, in criticism to Kuehn theory, and actually interviewed witnesses to actual crimes. Moreover, they interviewed 13 witnesses to a murder, soon after the crime, and again 4-5 months later. Resultantly, there was high degree of accuracy of memory and minimal decline of memory over time. It seems the witnesses were able to recall the majority of what happened in the crime. One would suggest this is due to witnessing a traumatic event, but they were able to reconstruct over the 4-5 months. This shows that memory can be distorted and this can be the cause of many misidentifications in terms of eyewitnesses. It seems to occur in many situations where individuals misidentify someone and construct their memories to how they imagine it to be. Further evidence for this was an experiment conducted by researchers Lacy & Stark (2013) they used an eyewitness identification technique. 66% of the participants misidentified the person, and in fact convicted an innocent person for the crime, when asked why the majority stated they had imagined that person in their mind. This however, was not a real life case but was just an experiment to test individuals memory and how misidentification in the criminal justice system is a very common occurrence. Conclusion In conclusion, As can be seen, Bartlett’s first theory into reconstructive memory and following research conducted by Loftus and Palmer, these examples, one would suggest seem to present a considerable understanding of the human memory and how it can be restricted in eyewitness testimony, and in addition how the individuals reconstruct memories in their mind to how they imagine the situation to be, as seen in all the experiments presented within the literature review (Newell, 1994). First, Bartlett presented a clear explanation of the aspects of human memory, and how individuals change certain memories in their mind to be like past memories, which is known as schemas. Second, Loftus and Palmer’s following research in 1974 into how reconstructive memory, in support to Bartlett’s theory presents the same ideas of individuals are questioned and reconstruct memories, which was also done with an innocent convict who made a false confession due to reconstructing thoughts in his mind.. Moreover, the following studies have, in opinion not presented a clearer image of reconstructive then previous studies from Bartlett and Loftus & Palmer, but shows how individuals when in questioning can become extremely confused and reconstruct memories. Occasionally, when people witness a crime in which a weapon was used, their attention tends to focus mostly on that weapon that was used. This is hardly surprising, as it is the weapon that represents the most obvious threat (Ben-Peretz,1995).Nevertheless, whilst the person’s attention is focused on the weapon, it is not focused elsewhere, so the person is not taking in much information about the person holding it, for instance. Weapon focus is simply the tendency for witness to violent crimes to focus the whole of their attention on the weapon that was used rather than the person who used it to commit the crime in question (Sanderson, 2006).Consequently, such kind of witness can never be relied upon to be able to recollect and give reliable information that can be used to in the courts of law. In a nutshell, from all the psychological factors that can influence the decision made by the eye witness, it is evident that reconstructive memory is a factor that can greatly affect eyewitness testimony in real life situation. 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