Why Do Eyewitnesses Sometimes Get It Wrong?
[2023-07-04 18:25:50]
In a TED speech by a forensic scientist, Scott Fraser, he explained the reality that the perpetrator was mistaken for a crime in the witness's story. He started with a story: drive his father who was playing with his children in the front yard. A man accused of being an archer was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. There is no gun, there is no evidence of the vehicle, only the testimony of the two sons of the man. The convicted man claimed innocence for 21 years. After 22 years imprisonment, he became a free man for Scott Fraser's forensic work.
The human brain can only encode part of the scene at a time. We have partially preserved what we saw and the brain fills the gap with its own information. After the event, this information may come from external sources, prejudice, or past experience. Forming a witness's record is a memory that we reconstructed, not a memory that we actually remember from the scene.
Within a few seconds of driving, almost no visibility in the darkness, it is practically impossible to distinguish archers. But when the picture was presented to two boys they chose Hispanic neighbors and their father told them to move away from them. In most cases, there is no shooter in the car, but the memory of a man said to be previous experience and danger is gathered by the brain to condemn the man for criticizing the mistake.
Memory is dynamic, partial, and variable. The accuracy of our memory is not measured by whether you are sure of how lively you are. Memory is very vibrant and looks very realistic, but it may be an integration of separate events or may be influenced by subconscious.
When did you see the second aircraft attacking the second tower on September 11? I guess you think that like a millions of Americans, you see it hit in the first person's first hour. It's not. Only after 24 hours of the tragedy, the media clip released the video of the second tower. Because of the mood of the day, your brain collects these events together, suppresses the effects of the incident, and is trying to alleviate the pain of memory.
So what is the solution to this memory problem? Scott Fraser showed two solutions. First of all, we must keep in mind the relative accuracy of memory, and we must monitor the facts that we believe through memories. The second applies to the court. More science needs to be included in the exam. Lawyers and judges need to understand the field of scientific research applied to the case. Science is to make witness's testimony more accurate. With the combination of science, due to the partial nature of human memory, I hope that people who are not so innocent are mistakenly convicted
Scott Fraser. "It is worth sharing the idea of TED" Reason for witnessing the wrong N. p., [NO DAY] May 2012. Network November 8, 2012 (http://www.ted.com/talks/scott_fraser_the_problem_with_eyewitness_testimony.html)
Scott Fraser explained in TED 's lecture "Why witnesses misunderstood it" in 2012, that the reliability of human memory is low. According to him, undue reliance on eyewitness testimony in the American judicial process mistakenly convicted many innocent people. For example, in the 1991 murder case, an innocent man was arrested based on a witness statement supporting the shooting. However, in a subsequent survey, it became clear that it is impossible for humans to clearly see the site when a murder case occurred. This story shows that human memory is not always reliable. Our memories are made up of information stored in various parts of the brain. According to Fraser, whenever people try to remember their past experiences, the information is rebuilt and our idea creates new information to fill in the lost gap.
The eyewitness's memory is a plot of the memory of a man's crime and other dramatic events he witnessed. Witnesses' testimony often depends on the justice system. It can also point to the personal memory of the face, for example they need to remember the face of th