Question

You are considered to be an expert in false memories, and a local district attorney has therefore requested your expertise on the following case:

On Tuesday, March 6, 2007, a bank was robbed in Slidell, LA. It was just after opening time, 9:04 a.m., and there were barely any customers, when a car arrived and parked in the side parking lot of the bank. Two men came out of the car and walked to the entrance. Both wore dark clothing. Upon entering the bank, they held out guns and asked for the manager. When the manager identified herself, the smaller of the two robbers ordered her to open the safe. Meanwhile, the other robber, a tall, and burley man, walked around holding his gun in his outstretched arm, and threatening the remaining employees and customers. The manager complied and the smaller robber collected all the money and valuables from the safe. After five minutes, the big robber asked if his companion was ready to go. When he was, the two ran back to their car, and drove away.

The district attorney has asked that you create a presentation about false memory and explain how it might influence this case. He asks that you specifically address the following: Describe at least one research study from a peer-reviewed journal that investigated how eyewitness memory can be affected by false memories.

Answer 1

False memories

A false memory is a fabricated or distorted recollection of a past event based on the current

external (environment) and internal factors (mood).

The factors which tend to manipulate the memory may influence any phase of cognitive memory

formation. The phases of which include 1) translating stimuli into brain storage, 2) converting

information from short term to long term and 3) reassesing the past information.

Neuroimaging studies:

Data from neuroimaging studies suggest that false memories can occur during the encoding

phase in the occipital and parietal regions of the brain; during consolidation in the medial

temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex; and during retrieval in the hippocampus region.

Stress:

Stress was shown to negatively affect the hippocampus region of the brain by the production of

the hormone “cortisol”. Previous studies investigated the occurrence of impairment in retrieval

may occur 25 mins after stress and later studies showed that the intensity of impairment in

retrieval of information after 90 mins is high.

Age:

A study of people under 37 year of age and people of age between 56 and 75 years showed

that older adults have lower capacity for source attribution than younger adults.

Influence of false memory in the presented case:

Since there is no data provided regarding age, we can rule out that factor. This incident might

be presented by a victim in the bank at the time of robbery. So there are good chances of

him/her experiencing stress. Also since the time of incident is alone given and not the time of

information retrieved from the victim. We could rule this factor too.

Chances I feel where false memory could have occurred: (during the cognitive memory

formation)

1) The time at the which the incident might have taken place may vary.

2) The appearance of the tall, burley man may vary

A research that investigated how eyewitness memory can be affected by false memories:

In December 2003, Haisheng Zhang was visiting his relatives in Lichuang County, Henan

Province, China. Suddenly he was detained by the police as a suspect for raping a 13-year old

girl in the woods. He was eventually sentenced to 9 years of imprisonment by the Court of

Lichuang County. The important evidence was the testimony of the victim who stated that she

was confident that Zhang was the culprit. Besides the victim, three teenage girls identified

Zhang from a lineup as the person who led the victim to the woods.

Meanwhile there is no physical evidence to incriminate Zhang as the offender. More than after a

year, another defendent confessed to a series of sex offending cases including the one in which

Zhang has been charged for.

Within that Zhang has already spent 480 days in the prison, being punished for the crime he has

not committed and only because of the effect of false memory of the victim and eyewitnesses.