Brainwashing Witnesses

Sometimes a court trial goes the "wrong" way because witnesses or even a plaintiff or defendant was brainwashed or hoodwinked into saying the wrong thing.

The opposition in the courtroom may even ask a question with all the words placed right in your mouth: "How far into the illegal left turn were you when you saw the sign?" when you may have never committed the infraction and therefore been totally innocent.

Last updated 10/10/04 and 2/23/13.

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Heard on the radio (WBZ 1030 Boston) ca 2004, transcript follows.

(Charles Osgood) In criminal investigations, the eyewitness may be less reliable than we always thought. New studies show how people can remember what never happened, or ever could have happened.

The story, after this.

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CO: Remember your first trip to Disneyland, when you met Bugs Bunny? A lot of people in a recent study did remember that, even though Bugs Bunny isn't at Disneyland. He isn't a Disney character. The meeting they remembered was a false memory implanted by University of California [at] Irvine psychologist Elizabeth Loftus (sp?).

Elizabeth Loftus: We wanted to find someting that we could try to implant in people's memories that just couldn't have happened.

CO: How did Loftus persuade her subjects that they had met the "wascally wabbit" at the competitor's theme park? It's easy.

EL: We showed them a fake ad for Disney that featured Bugs Bunny at the resort.

CO: When subjects saw multiple ads one third [of them] developed false memories

EL: They remember touching his tail or hearing him say "What's up doc" even though they couldn't have met him

CO: Loftus' research has serious implications for law enforcement, where high stakes cases like murder and child sex abuse often hinge on the memories of witneses. Solomon Fillero (sp?) is president of the American Psychology Law Society

Solomon Fillero: Prior to Loftus' work no one had really shown that entire memories can be implanted.

CO: Fillero has helped the U.S. Justice Department to develop new guidelines for questioning eyewitnesses.

SF: Basically you want to avoid giving the witness any information so that their eyewitness comes only from from their memory.

CO: Although scientists aren't sure why the brain does this, Loftus says her research shows memory is subject to reconstruction.

EL: Memory does not work like a tape recorder that we just record our events and we can play them back later. Memory is malleable. People can be very detailed, they can be very confident, and they can even be emotional about memories that are false.

CO: Charles Osgood, on the CBS radio network.


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