How eyewitness memory can serve justice

Witness identification errors have long been an unjustified source of condemnation, casting doubt on the reliability of memory in the courtroom. But the psychologist UC San Diego, John Wixed, says that history does not stop there. His research shows that if memory is tested in the right way – carefully, carefully and only once – it can be a powerful tool not only to identify guilt but to protect innocent people.

A prominent researcher, Wixtened began in fundamental science, studying how confidence and recognition work in the brain. When he turned his goal towards the memory of eyewitnesses, he found that the legal system often ignores the most reliable version of the memory of a witness: the first test. He also tends to ignore how confident an eyewitness was at the start. But the memory of eyewitnesses is no different from that of DNA or fingerprints in an important way, he maintains: “It can be contaminated”.

Wixteed, a distinguished professor from the Department of Psychology of the UC San Diego who has been president of the department for many years, manages the Wixed memory laboratory. His work on memory has influenced the way the police are carrying out alignments and has also been applied in the courtrooms across the country, leading to the exemptions from innocent people and helping to guarantee that in the future the right person is condemned in the first place.

We sat down with Wixtened to discuss.

Why does the memory of eyewitnesses count in matters of justice?

The memory of eyewitnesses is important to obtain real justice, because to make society a better place, it is essential to put the culprits in prison when they commit serious crimes, but also to protect the innocent people, not to put them in prison for crimes they have not committed. And memory can be used for this purpose if you use it in the right way.

Aren’t eyewitnesses often false?

Most people think that the memory of eyewitnesses is too reliable to trust because eyewitnesses are often mistaken at the time of a criminal trial. They remember honestly and sincerely but falsely an innocent person who has committed the crime.

What my research is showing is that if you come back at the start of the police investigation, the first time that the witness memory has been tested for this same person, it can be very reliable.

What does it take to properly test the memory of a witness?

The main thing to properly test the memory of a witness is to test it only once for a given suspect, because even this first test modifies the memory of the witness for this person. If this person is innocent, it is the first time that the witness has posed his eyes, and that is how he enters the memory of the witness.

In addition, it is important to correctly perform the test.

What does science say about how to manage a fair program?

You should have only one suspect in this programming, a person that the police think may have committed the crime. Everyone should be similar people that the police know is innocent. The witness must be informed that the author may not be among these photos.

And the officer who administers these photos should be an officer who does not even work on the business, and does not even know who the suspect is … This becomes a pure test of the witness. And when you do this in this way, that’s when things become interesting.

What about how the photos are displayed-does that count?

You can display the six photos simultaneously or show them one at a time. There is a controversy a few years ago on the best way to do it. Most research finds today that the range of simultaneous photos is the best way to test their memory.

How does the confidence of a witness help us say if they are right?

The recording of confidence that a witness has the first time that his memory is tested for a suspect is essential to distinguish reliable and unreliable identifications.

For a long time, the terrain has mistakenly concluded that confidence does not tell you anything, and it is true at the time of the criminal trial. But during the first test, it is the opposite. It tells you everything.

Can you explain your analogy between memory and forensic evidence?

People understand that forensic evidence can be contaminated. They know that DNA can be contaminated. They know that fingerprints can be contaminated.

This is why the police immediately arrive on the crime scene – to test unused forensic evidence.

All I say is that the same exact principle applies to human memory.

Get it early – before being contaminated. This is how you use memory to better serve the cause of justice.

Have your research changed the functioning of the judicial system?

I saw my work lead to real changes. This is currently happening, in fact, in various ways.

One way is that they saw some convictions of people who were not identified during the first test and identified with confidence in the trial, some after having spent decades in prison. They revisit the case on the basis of this new research and decide that in fact, the eye evidence … correctly understood, indicate that innocence, not guilt.

What is the thing you want more to understand?

I hope that more people understand that the memory of eyewitnesses is not unreliable. It is reliable during the first test. And you often find proof of innocence to which no one has ever paid attention. And that is why everyone thinks that the memory of eyewitnesses is not reliable.

How do you react to judges and jurors who think they already know how memory works?

They know forgetting, because we learn this through daily experience. We all forgot something, at some point.

They are completely unconscious of the other threat to the precision of memory, which is the contamination by memory. You have not forgotten – you remember clearly – except that this is false.

You do not know that you have false memories of episodes that have occurred in your distant past, but everyone does it.

The reason you don’t know is because it’s absolutely true.

Did you already expect your laboratory work to have an impact on a real life?

I never thought that the day would come when this work I did as a basic scientist would really help people. I have never seen it coming. I didn’t look for him. It’s just coming.

This is how fundamental science is. You don’t know what will apply to society and make our world a better place.

You said that this type of research only occurs with federal support. Why then?

I am a living example of the reason why he [matter]. Because the research that I carried out which led to these changes in the legal system all these years later, it cost the money to lead.

Most of the research I have carried out which are linked to what I am talking about today was obviously not linked to what I am talking about today. And so, you know, a company is not going to finance it. This is fundamental scientific research on the functioning of memory.

Federal funding is essential for this work to be carried out in the first place, because no one else will finance it.

This is why you need federal funding – to help write the encyclopedia of knowledge. So when you need it, you can remove it from the shelf.