Alyssa San Jose Topic Reliability of memories in eyewitness testimonies Loftus and Palmer 1974 was a two part study In Part A participants were shown a video of two cars crashing into each other After the video the participants were divided into groups where they were asked how fast were the cars going when they hit first group or smashed second group or contacted third group each other The average speed responses from each group varied based on which word the question used In Part B of the study a week later all the participants were asked if there was any glass in the video The smashed group had more people that answered that there was shattered glass present although there was none This study concludes that memory is not reliable based on reconstructive nature of schema The words hit contacted and smashed have different connotations and when applied to the video the memory is reconstructed and produces images that may not have been in the video leading participants to believe there was glass when there wasn t This study is extremely powerful in showing the reconstructive nature of schema It is extremely interesting that memories can actually be altered to fit pre existing notions of words in a question When first learning about schema it can be thought of as a filing cabinet where each memory is stored based on category So if a person encounters snow for the first time a schema for snow is created a new file for the cabinet Every incident including snow after the first is either assimilated fitting new experience into existing schema or accommodated changing the existing schema if a new form of snow is seen So in Loftus and Palmer 1974 each word has been filed into pre existing schema associated with other car crashes that participants have witnessed or read about before the study The participants then use their schema to define the new memory that has now been assimilated The result is the changed memories which can determine how cases in court are decided In the past eyewitness testimonies used to be the most significant piece of evidence in a court of law In recent years DNA forensic testing has proved many cases wrong that had previously been closed because an eyewitness testified To say that this is scary would be an understatement The law is supposed to be unbiased and fair To have prisoners sentenced to life in jail for rape and murder suddenly be set free and be told Sorry we were wrong you re innocent Ramifications of using eyewitness testimonies include this fact that a wrong individual could be convicted as the result of using a leading question To attempt to fix this issue it could be suggested that using as neutral terms as possible when examining a witness Instead of saying crashed it would be helpful if the lawyer instead chose a word such as contacted However this could lead to problems of phrasing and if the lawyer chooses to use a leading question to sway the witness even risking an objection for doing so the schema would already be activated To fix this issue another solution could be undermining eyewitness testimonies and require another piece of information to convict an individual By pairing DNA evidence and a testimony it could be concluded but a testimony alone would not sentence a person to life in jail Overall the reconstructive nature of memory is fascinating and it is interesting to wonder what memories of our own have been reconstructed based on assimilation of schema
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