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Eyewitness Testimony & Reconstructive Memory + Conditioning,…
Eyewitness Testimony & Reconstructive Memory + Conditioning
The Nature of Eyewitness Evidence
Definition: Recalling events witnessed firsthand (crimes, accidents).
Courtroom Impact: Highly persuasive to juries, especially when a witness is confident.
CRITICAL FLAWI: Confidence \= Accuracy. High confidence does not guarantee truth.
The Systemic Problem
Consequences: Leads to severe wrongful convictions.
Stat: Involved in ~75% of all DNA exoneration cases.
Case Study: Ronald Cotton (wrongfully identified by victim, later proven 100% innocent through DNA evidence).
Reconstructive Nature of Memory
Core Concept: Memory is not a video recording; it is actively reconstructed during retrieval.
Distortion Filters: Influenced by emotions, social interactions, personal biases, and question wording.
The Misinformation Effect
Definition: Exposure to incorrect post-event information alters the actual memory of that event.
Classic Study (Loftus): Participants saw a car at a stop sign → asked a question mentioning a yield sign →falsely remembered seeing a yield sign with massive confidence.
Leading Questions & Contamination
Mechanism: Questions designed to suggest a specific answer (e.g., "Which person was the attacker?" falsely assumes the attacker is actually in the room).
Effect: Spikes the rate of false identifications.
Social Contamination: Group discussions allow witnesses to blend and accidentally reinforce each other's incorrect memories.
Real-World Systemic Reforms
Lineup Overhauls: Implementing double-blind lineups (where the officer administering it doesn't know who the suspect is to prevent biased cues).
Interviews: Cognitive interviewing techniques designed to avoid leading wording.
Defining Learning
Definition: A permanent change in behavior resulting directly from experience.
Types: Conscious (intentional studying) vs. Unconscious (incidental/automatic learning).
Impact: Fundamentally shapes an individual's identity, habits, and daily behaviors.
The Two Pillars of Conditioning
Classical Conditioning (Pavlov): Learning through involuntary association.
Operant Conditioning (Skinner): Learning through voluntary actions paired with rewards and punishments.
Classical Conditioning Architecture
Core Concept: Linking a neutral stimulus to a meaningful one until the neutral stimulus triggers an automatic response.
The 4 Core Components:
Unconditioned Stimulus (US): Naturally/automatically triggers a reflex (e.g., Food).
Unconditioned Response (UR): The natural, unlearned reaction to the US (e.g., Salivating to food).
Conditioned Stimulus (CS): A previously neutral trigger that, after pairing, elicits a response (e.g., Bell).
Conditioned Response (CR): The newly learned reaction to the CS alone (e.g., Salivating to the bell).
Pavlov's Experimental Stages
Before: Bell → No response; Food → Salivation (UR).
During: Repeatedly pairing Bell (Neutral) + Food (US) → Salivation (UR).
After: Bell (CS) alone → Salivation (CR).
Key Behavioral Principles
Extinction: Presenting the CS (bell) repeatedly without the US (food) eventually weakens and erases the learned response (CR).
Blocking: If a reliable predictor (bell) is already learned, the brain completely ignores any new added stimulus (like a light) because it provides no new information.
Emotional Conditioning in Daily Life
Triggers: Everyday associations can instantly elicit automatic emotional states (Fear, Stress, Happiness).
Examples: Hearing a police siren causing instant anxiety, a specific morning alarm sound causing immediate physical stress, or environmental scents instantly reminding you of a specific person.
Eyewitness Testimony & Memory Biases
Conditioning & Learning