Below are 3 posts. Read each and come up with a general reply to each. Responses to each should be over 250 wrds.

Post 1

This week I really enjoyed the reading. I found myself learning a lot of new information. There was so much to learn and take in about memory. I was intrigued by many points and surprised at some as well. I had no idea how easy it is to manipulate a person’s memory. And not just manipulate it but leave the person truly believing the memories. A person can picture the memory and sometimes can even picture it very vividly as if it were real. The book points out for them it is real. We then learn the way that “false memory syndrome” has effected so many individuals and families. The use of eye-witness testimony in criminal and civil court cases has sent a number of individuals to prison when they are in fact innocent. I enjoyed reading the article about Dr. Elizabeth Loftus and all her work. According to Loftus “that our memories can lie, and that, when coaxed in one direction by people we trust (family members, therapists, police officers asking us to identify perps from a series of mug shots), all too often we can “remember” events that did not happen and see people at the scene of a crime who, in fact, were not actually there.” Over the years Loftus had set out to prove when a memory is unreliable. It is then useless as evidence in criminal cases. Not only that but men and women spend months in jail awaiting trial; others ultimately are sentenced to years in prison — all without a shred of physical evidence ever being presented. Memory is very vulnerable to suggestion. We can form memories that that are false and that have become memories simply from someone implanting an idea in our minds. This of course is where issues will start surfacing during a trial that involve eyewitness testimony or people’s memories of what happened, when, and to whom. According to our textbook “eyewitnesses are especially likely to make mistaken identifications when the suspect’s ethnicity differs from their own. Because of unfamiliarity with other ethnic groups, the eyewitness may focus solely on the ethnicity of the person they see committing a crime and ignore the distinctive features that would later make identification more.” I also learned that sometimes memories and a person’s testimony can be influenced by the way in which questions are put to the eyewitness and by suggestive comments made during an interrogation or interview. Eyewitness testimony is necessary and helpful for a lot of cases but it was interesting and a little scary to see just how many people can be effected by memories that are false or memories that have been influenced in one way or another.

Post 2

For this weeks forum we had to read a semi lengthy article, but to my surprise was much more interesting than I expected it to be. In Professor Loftus' article she gave a lot of great examples on how memory was a big factor in cases that involved child abuse, rape, crimes, etc. Professor Loftus " has served as an expert witness in over 250 cases since 1975". I find it extremely incredible how someone is so dedicated to protecting people who everyone thinks are guilty. In the article it mentions that she has been "proving not only is memory unreliable, it can also be utterly manipulated as to render it next-to-useless as pivotal evidence in criminal cases". Over the years innocent men and women who were imprisoned due to eye-witness testimonies were released after new DNA evidence cleared them of any crimes they were convicted of. One of the many examples Professor Loftus gave was about a famous Jane Doe case in which a mother was accused of sexually abusing her 6-year-old daughter. In this case the father and step mother were given full custody of the girl. As the years passed by she lost her memory of the abuse and of what happened. 11 years later she was re-interviewed by the person who interviewed her the first time years ago and suddenly her memory of the incident was back. Professor Loftus wondered if it was possible that the father and step mother had coached the little girl into saying those terrible things. I think that memory can honesty be controlled, I think that a lot of the eye-witnesses or victims confuse the person being accused with someone that reminds them of that person and falsifies a memory off a quick encounter in the past or anything that can trigger the memory. In this article it mentions how " even if someone is telling the truth, it may be they're telling the truth about a false memory- something that didn't happen". The whole concept of memory blows my mind, because memory is supposed to be something that we save from past situations such has birthdays, heart breaks, etc and to read about how memory can be a lie is incredible. I also think that eye-witnesses should be part of criminal and civil cases but not be the deciding factor in the case because physical evidence should overrun any memory.

Post 3

This week reading assignment was very interesting. I thought it was going to be a bit blah but I honestly enjoyed reading Dr. Loftus article. She made was great points that are key pieces in today’s society. Prior to reading this week assignment I never thought about memories the way she explained them. There were some parts in her article that stood out a lot to me and some that hit home.

Personally I suppress my memory of my childhood dieter’s. So reading the article I totally agree with her about memories only coming if you chose them to. The little girl she wrote about that didn’t remember exactly what happen to her was an eye opener. The fact that she couldn’t recall the supposed incident that affected her throughout her childhood was super weird. I too agree that there are times when people are tricked into believing something happen after they’ve heard the same story over and over again. It then becomes your own memory it’s a make belief that never happen but you become programmed to believing the stories.

Dr. Loftus brought another great point in her article. Humans being wrongfully accused of crimes is a very big deal in America. Recently there’s been cases where some people spends decades in prison for something they never did. Sadly they try to out pay them, but I don’t think that can make up for years of your life that was lost. There should be something set in place for if someone was wrongfully convicted by an eye witness, they should be punished. The “victim” should be imprisoned foe the same about of years the innocent person spent in prison.

After this week’s reading my mind has been blown of the process of memories. I thought memories were something you can always hold on to. Most of us tend to hold on to happier memories to keep those traditions up. Family member memories are kept especially when someone dies too early. So all we have is the memories we shared together to try to keep that person around although they’re long gone. After all my reading and understanding of this week reading I think eye witness shouldn’t be such a big part of putting people behind bars. There should be a lot more investigations to get a full understanding of the case before convicting innocent people. Hopefully Dr. Loftus story can be spread throughout the US for the government to use for better results when taking away people lives from right under them.