Study shows failings of memory
Canadian and British researchers have released the results of a groundbreaking study showing how easily people can be manipulated into thinking they committed crimes when they were younger, even if they are innocent.
After being fed a bit of false information and with some gentle prodding, a majority of study participants recalled events, including assaults and thefts, that never occurred — in some cases describing what the officers looked like or how their parents reacted.
The findings show how malleable our memories are and should serve as a warning to police about the use of deception when interviewing suspects, the researchers said.
“Confession evidence should always be corroborated with independent evidence, as it is possible that individuals can falsely confess to acts they never actually committed,” lead researcher Julia Shaw, a lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire, said in an email.
The study was co-written by Stephen Porter, a UBC professor, and published recently in the journal Psychological Science.
Sixty university students participated in the study, which involved three 40-minute interviews that took place a week apart.
Students were told about two events that happened during their teenage years. One event was true and based on information supplied by the students’ parents. The other event was fabricated, but included a smattering of true details, such as the city where they lived and the name of a friend they had during the alleged event.
The students were then asked to explain what happened during the two events.
When students were unable to recall the fabricated event, the interviewer would tell them to keep trying. “Most people are
“It is possible that individuals can falsely confess to acts they never actually committed. JULIA SHAW LEAD RESEARCHER AND UNIVERSITY OF BEDFORDSHIRE LECTURER
able to retrieve lost memories if they try hard enough,” the interviewer would say. Students were told to practise visualizing the false event each night at home and to record any details that came to mind.
Students were led to believe that the interviewer had received detailed information about the false event from their parents. Interviewers used other tactics, such as nodding or smiling as students answered and deliberately pausing or staying silent to encourage students to provide additional details.
By the end of three sessions, 70 per cent of students who had been led to believe they had committed crimes as teenagers were persuaded they had done so. One student recalled throwing a rock at a girl. “I got ticked off and threw a rock at her. And the reason why I threw a rock at her was because I couldn’t get close to her,” she told the interviewer.
Two officers showed up at the house, the student recalled. One, she believed, was Caucasian, while the other was Hispanic. “I remember being so shocked when the cops came,” she told the interviewer. “That was bad. That was bad. Bad scene.”
Another student remembered “feeling, like, pretty scared” after being caught stealing a “CD or something.”
“I guess I can kind of see my mom being a little bit mad,” the student said.
The study also revealed that students were just as easily persuaded that non-criminal events had taken place, such as being attacked by a dog or suffering a personal injury.
The findings confirm that exposure to misinformation can lead to “major distortions” in memory, the researchers wrote. Further, having the students visualize the false events likely led them to confuse imagination with reality.
Kirk Luther, a PhD candidate at Memorial University in Newfoundland and who has done a lot of research on police interviewing, said the study shows why police need to avoid using guided imagery and ensure they do not “drip feed” information to suspects who may incorporate that information into their memory.