Cognitive Functions Explored in Memory, Perception, and Attention in Relation to Eyewitness Testimony

Cognitive Functions Explored in Memory, Perception, and Attention in Relation to Eyewitness Testimony

Kaplan University

PS-200-01- Unit 5 Assignment

Eye witness testimony for a long time was considered to be a form of accurate memory that could be relied on when convicting people of alleged crimes; until research went further into investigating the theories and processes that go on within the brain and how many outside influences can affect what was once considered an acceptable and accurate testimony. Through a deeper look into memory, perception, and attention we can examine how many influences play a part of our memories and memory recollection, both consciously and unconsciously.

Memory consists of our ability to encode, store, retain, and subsequently recall information and our past experiences in the human brain (Mastin, 2010). There are three general processes which occur in our memory and they include encoding, storing, and retrieval. As human beings we are generally ruled and governed by our emotions, feelings, and moods and/or environmental influences. Stress has the ability to actively interfere with the encoding process. With aging, there is a natural decline in our cognitive function and abilities and memory retrieval becomes less accurate as our functioning slowly diminishes.

Perception, according the Oxford English dictionary, is defined as, “The process of becoming aware or conscious of a thing or things in general; the state of being aware; and understanding.” We actively use our senses including taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound to help us perceive the world around us. The process that helps us understand how perception works can be explained by bottom-up and top-down processing. Bottom-up processing includes the visual processing of an external stimuli. We view something or hear a sound and we have to register this sensory information before we can begin to break it into concepts that we are familiar with. This is where top-down processing applies itself and the use of contextual information in pattern recognition (Gregory, 1970).

Our memories have an effect on our perceptions and our perceptions have a direct effect on how we interpret and store our memories. We are actively and unconsciously relating information and knowledge we have stored to our perception of the reality around us.

If during the robbery you were lost in thought or trying to focus on another memory, this can contaminate visual perception which interferes with your ability to perceive and remember the details of the robbery you are viewing with certain accuracy (Moran, 2011). The recall of memories may skew and alter our visual perceptions.

Stanford University (2006) defined attention as, “A process that, at any given moment, enhances some information, and inhibits other information (p 103).” We are constantly bombarded by an overwhelming amount of external stimuli that we cannot possibly supply with our undivided attention. By directing our focus onto a specific thought, item, or task that enables us to process, interpret, store and retrieve information. All this relies on the amount of attention that is applied to a situation that you want to recall. Posner and Bois (1971) suggested that, “Attention has three components; orienting to sensory events, detecting signals for focused processing, and maintaining a vigilant or alert state (p 104).” In the robbery that my client experienced it is very likely that there was a lot of distracting stimuli in the environment which could cause the eye-witness to have shifted focus and begin paying less attention to the robber. We are only able to focus our attention on a small amount of stimuli around us and by doing this we are selecting only partial information while not being attentive to the larger amount that is surrounding us.

When combining perception and attention and looking into reasons how it might influence memory I would like to take a deeper look into emotion. Emotions play a strong factor on the influence of how we perceive information and the attention we focus on it. There is a rich interaction in the brain when our emotions are heightened while performing a cognitive task. Brosch, Grandjean, Sander, and Scherer (2013) stated, “Behavioral findings across many different tasks and paradigms indicate that perceptions facilitated and attention prioritized for emotional information.” But with this emotional experience we still have the chance of hearing distorted information that will weaken the memory or the memory specifics can decrease after time has passed and you have not spent much time recalling the memory.

Sometimes the intensity of emotion can increase our confidence in the recollection of an event. A prime example of this could be the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. People are very likely to be able to tell you where they were when they heard the news report debuted but less likely to be able to tell you the details of events from that day, especially after time went on. Our emotions cause us to focus so much on how we are feeling and the intensity of those feelings can grasp most of our attention.

There are a handful of factors that affect memory accuracy and eye witness testimony. When we perceive information we organize the data into categories based on schemas we have formed. A schema is general knowledge about an object or event. So from information we already have stored the brain can input this knowledge and apply it to your memory recall so that it becomes a part of your experience that you remember. Matlin (2012) quoted, “faulty source monitoring can lead to errors in eyewitness testimony; people may believe that they witnessed something when it had been suggested to them in a different situation (p 153-154).” This example ties into the Post-event Misinformation Effect (1978) where people view an event and then the memory is altered by misleading information and the memory recalled ends up being the misleading information rather than the actual memory (Matlin, 2012, p 158). Social pressure to know the right answer or help convict a fugitive for personal reasons can cause errors in memory recollection as well.

Matlin (2012) emphasized that, “Eye witnesses make more errors if they saw a crime committed during a stressful circumstance, for instance, when someone was carrying a weapon (Kovera & Borgida, 2010).” A robbery was no doubt a situation that was stressful and threatening to the safety of many people. New information you have learned has, prior to the experience, has also been acknowledged to cause conflict with recognition and make alterations to memories, also referred to as retroactive memories. There are many factors which contribute to and affect positively and negatively with memory accuracy, which leads to the final great debate of whether memory confidence is correlated with memory accuracy.

There are many studies that have been conducted and show no correlation between memory confidence and memory accuracy (Matlin, 2012). When you are provided with positive feedback from others, you increase your confidence that you remember the memory with accuracy although that does not directly affect your ability to recall specific details from a stressful or traumatic experience. Motivation is said to increase our ability to remember and through positive feedback you are being provided with a motivation to be responsible for restating a memory with accuracy. Social pressure can make our minds convinced that we had seen an event or person in full detail, but it is possible to see or be provided with a mental image that is similar to an experience and then incorporate the images into that memory. Completely changing and adapting what you were convinced you had witnessed.

As a psychologist I am bound to a Code of Ethics that require me to convey characteristics such as reliability, accountability and timeliness to my client. A professional example of how I would answer the questions being asked and examples of resources I would use include: using published respected journals, articles, and research from reliable websites that end in .gov, .edu, or .org and to make full use of University libraries and organizations within the field that link you with knowledge and other available resources. I am making myself accountable for the reliability of these sources. Collaboration with other psychological, law enforcement specialists, and medical experts in the field will help me to create a wide amount of information and link to extra resources that can be presented and provided to my client. Learning when delegation should be used when you have too much research to sort through, can be a useful tool to getting your client needed information in a timely manner.

When a client asks questions that you have no substantial and validated knowledge of, for the sake of preventing misinformation or wrong information being provided, wait to answer the client’s questions until you have had time to conduct a thorough and organized method of research. If a situation does occur where I had provided my client with incorrect information, I would quickly acknowledge my mistake, make amends with my client by apologizing and providing them with the correct information as quickly as possible.

As my client I want you to know that I am dedicated to providing you with an ethical and professional service. As well, provide you with a substantial amount of supported research to answer your many questions on how memory, perception, and attention can all have impacts on how we think we remember events we have been through. There are so many parallel cognitive processes going on within our brain at any given moment that even though we think we are clearly seeing a situation, research has proven that many factors come into play in regards to our memories and being able to recall them with complete accuracy. This is a solid amount of proof to help you to understand the verdict that the court came to regarding the burglary that you experienced.

References

Aque, Chris (2007). Perception. Retrieved from:

cmst.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/perceptionperceivability.htm

Brosch,T., Grandjean, D., Sander, D., Scherer, K., (May 14th, 2013). The impact of emotion on perception,

attention, memory, and decision making. Retrieved from: www.smw.ch/content/smw-2013-13786

Mastin, Luke (2010). What is memory? Retrieved from: www.human-memory.net/intro_what.html

Matlin, M. W. (10/2012). Cognition, 8th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from

http://kaplan.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118545560/http://kaplan.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118545560/

McLeod, S.A. (2007). Visual perception theory. Retrieved from: www.simplypsychology.org/perception-theories.html

Moran, Melanie (July 19th, 2011). Memories may skew visual perception. Retrieved from: news.vanderbilt.edu/2011/07/memories-visual-perception/

Stanford University (March 11, 2006). Attention. Cognition. Retrieved from: