Elizabeth Loftus is a major researcher in memory and eyewitness testimony. (Some

Question

Elizabeth Loftus is a major researcher in memory and eyewitness testimony. (Some links are provided on the PowerPoint presentations in Course Material.) Discuss one factor that can increase or decrease the accuracy of eyewitness testimony according to research. Suggest strategies used to optimize memory. Consider if research on the savant may help increase typical memories? Loftus portrays a picture of memory as a re-constructive process yet, the research on savants does not. How can we reconcile this?

- Research on false beliefs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu6-4TN8EOk

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSKVyQDlUO4

- Misinformation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtwWM8Or1wo

- The Mind of the Savant

- http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/beautiful-minds-the-psychology-of-the-savant/

Explanation / Answer

According to memory scientist Elizabeth Loftus, memory is not a mere recording device of events, things as they occur, but it is also a reconstructive process. Thus, according to Loftus’stheory of reconstruction in memory, recall or retrieval of information is prone to errors under the influence of external or situational factors. In her experiments on the accuracy of recollection about a simulated car accident by the participants, Loftus demonstrated that the eyewitness accounts or testimonials in the legal courts are prone to wha she called ‘false memories’. In other words, the recollection of details about a crime such as the series of actions, the outcome of crime and even the actual identify of the real criminal, all these are facts which can be inaccurately recalled. Thus, verbal leads such as use of words like ‘the car collided in the bus?’ Versus ‘ the car smashed into the front of the bus’ can create two different interpretations about the same event of a car accident. This will eventually influence the decisions that the witnesses make of the impact of the accident. The fact that external cues can intervene and decrease the efficacy of the retrieval process of memory makes the eyewitness testimonials prone to erroneous recalls. Thus, the more we remember an event, the less reliable that memory becomes.

It thus follows that a way to improve to increase accurate retrieval of memory is to recall information in the presence of appropriate retrieval cues. Thus, instances like the similarity in mood of the witness at the time of the experience and the retrieval of the experience, strategies such as conducting the interview in a situation that matches the original crime context as closely as possible, and asking witnesses to remember events from multiple perspectives, can help improve eyewitness memory.

Another important process in the improving of memory comes from research on Savants or the group of individuals with gifted memories and other intellectual skill sets such as mathematical operations, music, art and craft, etc. a pioneer researcher in the area, Dr. Darold Treffert has extensively studied the cognitive processing of information by Savants and his work has formed the groundwork for understanding the innate or genetic factors involved in the working of exceptional memory capacity as displayed by Savants. They display a memory process of “the 3 Rs”: recruitment, rewiring, release.The capacities that savants draw upon come from fast, pre-conscious mental activity which is devoid of higher processes of cognitive reasoning. Instead they make use of automatic,rigid and rule-based but nonetheless speedier congnitve retrieval processing. However, this evidence is poles apart from Loftus’ work on the reconstruction of memory as the cognitive processing of information in Savants is not modifiable due to external , while research on Savants helps us to know about improving typical memory such as for remembering mathematical solutions, or list of names, etc. it does not help us to fully address the issue of errors in the recall of memory.

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