Memory lessons from the courtroom: Reflections on being a memory expert on the witness stand

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. In the first part of this article, I describe a variety of cases that I have been involved with that led to my becoming an expert witness. These cases range from questions about children's memory for being raped, to remembering an ear-witnessed murder, to preventing future false memories. In the second part of this article, Permanent

The fallibility of memory in judicial processes: Lessons from the past and their modern consequences

“…Other accounts from expert witnesses provide equally unusual detail. Howe ( 2013b ) observes a vivid memory from a witness statement that reports an event from when the complainant was 3 years old: I was upstairs and I was playing in the spare room, and I was a bit upset. I was wearing my favorite pink dress and I remember him coming up to me … and he just picks me up and he just sat me on his lap and gave me a really big squeeze.…”

“…For example, there is the belief that the more specific details a complainant can remember (e.g., verbatim conversations, the clothing people were wearing, the day of the week the event happened, what they ate for breakfast that day) the more accurate the memory (see Bell & Loftus, 1988 ). Of course, what the scientific study of memory shows is that quite often rather than being seen as a sign of the veracity of that memory such details are a harbinger for scepticism (e.g., Howe, 2013a , 2013b ).…”

What Do People Believe about Memory? Implications for the Science and Pseudoscience of Clinical Practice

“…[20][21][22] The specificity of recall of events and the emotion participants attach to these events provide no guarantee of their accuracy. 23,24 The finding that memory is reconstructive bears important implications for therapy, as does the contrary belief that memories are preserved in pristine form in the unconscious, yet accessible using memory recovery techniques. Therapist and patient beliefs regarding memory and the centrality of memory recovery to the process of therapy can steer decisions regarding the choice of therapeutic techniques.…”

Memory development: implications for adults recalling childhood experiences in the courtroom

“…However, like all memories, recollection of traumatic experiences is reconstructive, subject to forgetting, and prone to error 3 . For example, adults who recalled documented childhood sexual abuse experienced some 12 to 21 years earlier were able to accurately recollect core features of these experiences.…”