Peer Review

While there are many theories that look into perception and some even take the mind into account, there are very few views that focus on the brain and chemicals in it. The brain is very complex and to everyday we are still learning new things about it so, clearly when looking at memory, we are clearly limited as we still don’t fully understand everything about how the brain works. Memory is clearly limited and it is a pretty widely accepted fact that we are better at recognizing than recalling (Stenberg & Stenberg, 2017). So, why is it that we put so much trust on eye witnesses if we know the brain is limited?

So, with all those things in mind, one can pose the question “How can the approach used to interview witnesses be changed up to better address the limitations of attention and memory? Also, could chemicals like epinephrine help or hinder the retention of details.”

When looking at the contemporary problem and the theories in question, we can see that each has its strength and weakness. Direct perception has the strength of being a straight forward and simple process. The issue that we’re looking at is how to better address the issue of witnesses and poor recollection of what they saw. If one is to believe that direct perception is truly the best choice to go with then, people simply need to be taught to pay attention better. The benefit to this theory is in its simplicity. People are simply taught how to better control fear and then can pay better attention to their surroundings. The weakness of this strategy is the fact that some people show no fear or worry while being interviewed after an incident yet, they still can’t remember details. If it was as simple as direct perception leading to recognizing and remembering things then those who showed no fear or worry would be perfect eye witnesses. So, clearly this theory is limited.

Constructive perception is the next theory in question and it’s a good choice when looking at its strengths and weaknesses. This theory revolves around higher thinking and the concept that perception is a give and take. This theory claims that the perceiver builds cognitive understandings based on the stimuli that are being presented to them. With this theory in mind, if we accept the idea that cognition and perception are a give and take then we can make some sense of why people have poor recollection of events. With this theory we can make sense of the poor details b realizing that people see the situation, realize it’s a threat and focus on keeping themselves safe as opposed to focusing on the actual event at hand. This theory has potential. If the claims are correct and the mind and perception are intertwined, then people simply need to be taught how to deal with stressful situations. If people were taught how to deal with fear and stressful situations, they would be able to identify these situations and then be better suited to address them and record the events into long term memory.

The last and possibly most promising of the theories is that of context effect. As previously stated, context effect is a theory that shows how powerful association is when dealing with perception and memory. Studies have shown how when people are shown an item (e.g. a room) they can quickly pick out other items that belong in then room. This theory is promising and depending on how strong the effect is, could potentially help solve the problem of poor witness reports. If context is truly important to perception and memory then, the witness could be taken back to the scene of the crime being the most promising chance of getting correct information from them. The only down side to this theory is that we don’t know just how strong the context effect is and on top of that, we can’t be sure that a witness or victim would be willing to go back to the scene of a crime. The location can be painful or traumatic so, the person with the information may not want to revisit it. At that point, the power of the context effect becomes irrelevant.

For that reason, the best of the three theories presented is the context effect. Although it is limited and dependent on a person’s willingness to return to the scene of the crime, it is the best of the three choices. The fact that it has been shown to lead to association and recollection of preexisting knowledge means that we can potentially use this technique to help people better remember and recall events. If this is truly the case then, people could truly benefit from being taken back to the scene of the crime. By doing this, people could remember the events and more confidently state what they saw.

A study by Cahill and Alkire (2003) on the effects of epinephrine on memory consolidation found that epinephrine leads to better memory recollection. That means that the inclusion of adrenaline leads to better recollection of the items that participants were shown. The only downside with this is that the participants were given adrenaline before the study started so, the researchers had no way of proving if the results were based on better memory storage or better attention. While the findings were inconclusive, the results showed significantly better memory in participants that were given the adrenaline. This means that there is a chance that adrenaline can be associated with memory storage and recollection. So, if you take these findings and join it with the idea of context effect we might have a likely solution. The victims could simply be taken to the scene and then given adrenaline to stimulate them, recreate the location and chemical rush that they had when they witnessed the events. This could potentially lead to better witness testimonies.

The idea of taking a witness or victim back to the scene of the crime is not necessarily a ground breaking idea as Hershkowirz, Orbach, Lamb, Stenberg, Horowit and Hoyay (1998) theorized that taking people back to the scene of a crime could jog more detailed memories. For their study, they took children who suffered from abuse back to the homes where they were abused. By taking the kids back to the scenes where the crimes had occurred, they were able to collect much more detailed information about the events that occurred. While the study was limited as the researchers had no way of assessing the accuracy of the information, it did fall in line with what had already been reported and just helped fill in some of the holes. This study showed that taking victims back to the scene of the crime could be potentially beneficial, this falls in line with the context effect as the people would be more able to recall and put things in that scene.

Last, but not least Hope, Gabbert, Fisher and Jamieson (2014) focused on the idea that eyewitness memory is fleeting and that protecting it is of the utmost importance. Their study revolved around proving just how fragile memories are. This study revolved around not the witness but the cops. The participants in this study were broken up into 2 groups, one that practiced Self-Administered Interviews to try and remember a crime they saw, while the other group was just part of a traditional interview process. The findings showed that people that practiced in self-administered interviews were more likely to remember things than those that were simply questioned. This study presented the idea that police questioning can end up being charged or driven in a certain direction that distorts and destroys the memories of the witness. But, by simply practicing a memory recollection, witness can remember the events in question much better.

In conclusion, the research is all out there and we know very many promising leads to ensuring that memory is protected. By taking a few of the methods and joining them, we could potentially create a much stronger bond with the memory and that way we ensure that the witness is confident and able to correctly remember things. Future research should definitely look into the benefits of say, joining theories like context effect and SAI. Separately, each has proven very promising so, together it is possible that they would be able to potentially turn any short term memory into long term memory. Follow up research should be done and if this proves to be true, this could be huge for the study of memory storage and recollection as it would help steer us in a new direction. Up until now we’ve all heard the idea that memory is brittle and easily tampered but theories like this could potentially disprove that believe and show that anything we want to store as long term memory can be stored.

References

Cahill, L., & Alkire, M. T. (2003). Epinephrine enhancement of human memory consolidation: Interaction with arousal at encoding. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory,79(2), 194-198. doi:10.1016/s1074-7427(02)00036-9

Hershkowitz, I., Orbach, Y., Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., Horowitz, D., & Hovav, M. (1998). Visiting the scene of the crime: Effects on childrens recall of alleged abuse. Legal and Criminological Psychology,3(2), 195-207. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8333.1998.tb00361.x

Hope, L., Gabbert, F., Fisher, R. P., & Jamieson, K. (2014). Protecting and Enhancing Eyewitness Memory: The Impact of an Initial Recall Attempt on Performance in an Investigative Interview. Applied Cognitive Psychology,28(3), 304-313. doi:10.1002/acp.2984

Sternberg, R. J., & Sternberg, K. (2017). Cognitive psychology (7th ed.). Australia: Cengage Learning.