Hello!
I’ve been watching police procedural and crime TV
shows recently. The police use a technique to get more clues about crimes. They
ask a witness to close their eyes and relive the scene minutes before the crime
happened, hoping the witness would recall some detail he failed to report
earlier. But I read somewhere (I forgot where) that we actually reconstruct
them instead of recalling. This means that most of the time we just made up
most of our memories?? So is this technique really effective in real life???
Elsa
Hello dear! I also enjoy watching police
procedural TV shows. Criminal Minds is my favorite. And this technique that you
described is what they also sometimes use in solving their cases. Just like
you, I have wondered the efficiency of this technique in real life and
fortunately, I have found the answer.
When we experience an event, we first encode it
into our brain. The event details then are stored in our brain and when the
time needs those information, we retrieve them. There are two types of memory
retrieval. The first type is recognition. A cue is provided that lead to retrieving
that memory. The second type is recall. No cue is available to help the person
to remember the memory. These types of memory retrieval are seen when we take
our exams. The multiple choice type of exam uses recognition, while fill in the
blanks type uses recall.
During memory retrieval, however, false and
distorted memories could be retrieved instead of the real ones. There have been
numerous studies about false memories (Roediger & McDermott, 1995; Brainerd
& Reyna, 2002; Storbeck & Clore, 2005). But for your question, Elsa, let’s
focus on one study done by Peggy St. Jacques and Daniel Schacter (2013). In
their study, they asked people to attend a self-tour in a museum. During the
self-tour, they wore a camera that takes photos every 15 seconds. Two days
after the tour, they showed photos to the same set of people and asked them to
just reply if the photo is part of the tour or not. When they showed photos
that actually do not belong to the tour, most remember the photo being part of
the tour. This result is also similar on how we remember our childhood
memories. Most of them are actually false memories already.
Applying these results to the technique the
fictional police use in interviewing witnesses, I say the technique would not
be as efficient as it was portrayed in the TV shows. Though a recent study
suggest that closing the witness’ eyes would improve the accuracy of the
memory, there is still a danger on false memory (Vredeveldta & Penrod,
2012). Leading questions during the interview could also have a great effect on
the memory that the witness is trying to remember. These leading questions are
similar to the false photo presented in the study (St. Jacques & Schacter,
2013). It is also important that the witnesses to not be exposed to other
details of the case so that he could really recall what he actually saw. Though
this technique is not recommended, there will always be a time when a witness’
statement is all the police have and it should not stop them from solving the
case.
Senserely yours,
Jade C
References
Brainerd, C.J. & Reyna, V.F. (2002). Fuzzy-trace theory
and false memory. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 11(5), 164-169.
Roediger, H.L. & McDermott, K.B. (1995). Creating false
memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 21(4),
803-814. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.21.4.803
St. Jacques, P.L. & Schacter, D.L. (2013). Modifying memory:
Selectively enhancing and updating personal memories for a museum. Psychological Science, 24(4), 537-543 doi:
10.1177/0956797612457377
Storbeck, J. & Clore, G.L. (2005). With sadness comes accuracy;
With happiness, false memory: Mood and the false memory effect. Psychological Science, 16(10), 785-791. doi:
10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01615.x
Vredeveldta, A. & Penrod, S. (2012). Eye-closure
improves memory for a witnessed event under naturalistic conditions. Psychology, Crime & Law, 19(10),
893-905. doi:10.1080/1068316X.2012.700313
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