Tricks of memory can leave us f loundering in darkness
MEMORY is up for examination in the Court of Public Opinion in the United States and it has divided along partisan, political lines. The Democrats support one person’s version of events, the Republicans the other.
The aspirant to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States, Brett Kavanaugh, has been accused of attempted sexual assault by a woman when she was 15 and he 17. He vehemently denies this.
Christine Blasey Ford, herself a psychologist, has said the incident happened sometime in the early 1980s at a house party in the course of which a lot of alcohol was consumed. She can’t recall where this was, how she got there or got home and has named three others who were present. All have denied recollection of the party, one of whom has no recollection of ever meeting the accused.
It is remarkable that amongst the thousands of articles written on the Ford-Kavanaugh stand-off, there has been little or no input from those who know most about memory, forensic psychologists.
The general view of memory is that an event which we experience, particularly if it is traumatic, is imprinted in our memory and remains there, like a video or audio recording, indelible and available to us when we need to recall it.
It is also assumed the more we think about the event and the more closely we are questioned about it, the more likely we are to recall details hitherto forgotten.
This is a totally erroneous view. One need only consult ‘Report of the British Psychological Society Guidelines on Memory and the Law (2008)’ to appreciate the fallacy of these commonly held beliefs.
Memories are constructions based only in part on events as they actually occurred and at times even on false memories.
This does not mean people are knowingly lying, although of course that can happen. It demonstrates memory is fallible, more like an oil painting – something that is constructed layer upon layer and in the process images are drawn and then overlain with others, driven by emotion and by perspective, so that depending on when the work of art is viewed, it has changed from the canvas drawings.
Memories of events can also be influenced by alcohol intake at the time or by mental “shut down”, also known as dissociation. This is a protective mechanism, particularly when trauma is severe. The natural process of forgetting also taints and distorts memories. So memories are neither indelible nor immutable.
They are most often vague and lacking detail and especially so after a lapse of over 35 years since the alleged event. Therein lies the problem also, particularly when a court or tribunal is trying to definitively establish facts on the basis of the “balance of probabilities”, as in civil cases and tribunals, or “beyond reasonable doubt” in criminal cases.
The world-renowned child psychologist Jean Piaget is reported to have had a recollection of his attempted kidnapping when he was a toddler. He recalled being in a park when an attempt was made to kidnap him, his nanny fighting the assailants and the police chasing them away. His parents often spoke to him about this near tragedy.
Ten years later, his nanny wrote a letter to his parents, saying she had fabricated it. Even after this disclosure he found it difficult to believe it had not happened. The story, with its vivid imagery, had been incorporated into his episodic visual memory.
More recent studies involving university students have found them recalling being hockey players and riding in hot air balloons when parents subsequently reported that no such events occurred.
The only sure way of accurately recalling events is by frequent repetition from the time of the event onward, combined with a written account so as to avoid contamination by frequently recounting it to others and doing so multiple times in subsequent years. Another independent collaboration from independent sources, whose recollection also has not been contaminated by time, can be helpful.
It seems the same people who spoke out in support of or in defence of each party before the initial hearing in Washington have been re-interviewed.
The British Psychological Society in its document points out frequent re-interviewing or pressuring suspects and witnesses does not improve recall and may increase the unreliability of those involved. This is particularly problematic when there is a decades-long gap between the alleged event and its emergence into the public domain.
One thing is certain – unless a new witness, with impeccable recall and uncontaminated memory, comes forward, the public will be no nearer to establishing the truth about alleged events in 1982.
Like the senators, the public will be left to find refuge in their partisan positions and their mutual mistrust of each other.
Modern democracy has been demeaned by this pretence at establishing the facts when, by even the most basic application of common sense, this was psychologically impossible.
The public will be left to find refuge in their partisan positions and mutual mistrust