Schemata, Eye Witnesses and Memory Distortions

Definitions:
Schema: cognitive frameworks of the way that certain things should be - these ideas and frameworks of thinking are developed as a result of experience.
Memory: the way that one recalls information that was once processed.
Eye-witness: the witness of an incident of a third-person.

Experiments:
Loftus and Palmer, 1974
Loftus believed that memory was a reconstructive process, just as Bartlett had suggested in his "War of the Ghosts" study in 1932. She wanted to know how leading questions would affect the memory of an eye-witness. She chose to show how the memory of participants of a study could change depending on the way that a 'critical question' of an incident (i.e. a short film of a car crash) was worded. Palmer, on the other hand, was interested in seeing how questioning could change the memory of participants.
Loftus and Palmer collected participants in America in the 70s to watch a film of two cars crashing into each other. After viewing the video, the participants were as "how fast were the cars going when they hit/smashed/crashed/touched each other?" The main verb in the question was different according to the group that the participants were assigned by the researchers. As a result, Loftus and Palmer found that participants that were asked "how fast were the cars going when they crashed/smashed into each other?" had the fasted estimates, especially among subjects who were asked "how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?"
Loftus and Palmer concluded that this was due to the critical question's main verb's impression on the individual. Words such as smash and crash were attached to schemata of severe crashes, while words such as "came into contact" and "hit" were not as severe. Loftus found that leading questions could indeed change or alter the memory of the participants. This suggests that eye-witness testimonials are not accurate and can be manipulated depending on the question that is asked of the eye-witness. In a later study, Loftus and Palmer divided participants into three groups, where all three groups watched the same video once again but were asked a series of questions. One group was asked "how fast were the cards going when they smashed into each other?", another was asked "how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" and the control group was asked questions but not of the speed of the cars. Two weeks later, participants were called back and asked whether they remember glass breaking in the videos. Suprisingly, those that were asked "how fast were the cars going when the smashed into each other?" had a 33% rate of participants saying that they had seen glass, while only 14 percent of the second group saw glass. Only 6 percent of the control group claimed they had seen glass. In reality, there was no glass. This second study suggests that initial processing that is manipulated by leading questions and schemata are liable to affect the way that consequences are processed in the future. As a result, it can be concluded that memory of witnesses, ie eye witness testimonials are susceptible to distortion and thus are no reliable. It also explains how schemata can affect the way that memories are kept, just as Bartlett had suggested in his 1932 study.

However, there are instances in psychology experiments where it has been shown that general details are remembered clearly by eye-witnesses, even under severely stressful and high-risk situations. An example is a relatively recent study that analysed the eye-witness testimonials of how the titanic sank: whether it broke in half before sinking, or sunk intact. The eye witnesses (with the exception of two people) said that the ship had sunk after breaking, despite the 'leading questions' asked by the British and American hearings a few days after the titanic rescue. While this is a general detail that was remembered by the eye witnesses, it brings upon the question of whether specific details are accurately recalled by witnesses. (Titanic eye witness study by Riniolo).

Flashbulb Memory: Brown and Kulik (1977)

Flashbulb Memory

Brown and Kulik (1977)

Emotion can affect one's memory of an occurrence. According to LeDoux, a psychologist who argued that there are biological pathways of emotion in the brain, the arousal of emotion will facilitate the memory of events that occur during that aroused state. However, one should always remember that memory can be enhanced and amplified by an intense emotion, but will not always be accurate.

The theory of flashbulb memory was suggested by Brown and Kulik in 1977. This theory suggests that some memories are remembered distinctly - even after time had passed - because the events incited highly emotional responses at the time. The emotional events are recorded in the brain as if by the flash of a camera.

Brown and Kulik found that people had clear memories of where they had been, what they had been doing, and what had happened in events in which they were emotionally involved. Examples include when JFK and MLK Jr. had been assassinated. These participants of the study were asked if they also had flashbulb memories of personal events. Out of the 80 participants, 73 said yes for events that were especially emotional, such as traumatic events or the deaths of family members. 

Explaining the actuality of the flashbulb theory: Brown and Kulik attempted to explain the biology of this effect by suggesting that there were special neural mechanisms that triggered emotional arousal for unexpected or extremely important events. This hypothesis is now supported by modern neuroscience: emotional events are better remembered than less emotional events. While reasons are still unknown to us, it could be because of the involvement of the amygdala (which is responsible for emotional responses and memory.

Neisser (1982): Argues against the flashbulb memory theory:

Neisser argued that flashbulb memory was not a cogent theory as people do not know that events are important until after the event is over. Thus, Neisser feels that the reason that some memories are especially vivid is due to their being rehearsed over and over again, once the event is known to be "important". Neisser argues that flashbulb memory is due to internal narrative: "where was I when [important event] happened?" "what was I doing when [important event] happened?" "who told me about [important event]?"...

Vivid Memories are Not Always Accurate:

In January of 1986, seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger died due to a tragic accident. This event was aired on television, so it was a shocking event for all its audience. Neisser and Harsch (1992) investigated people's memory accuracy of that event, 24 hours within the timeframe that the accident occurred, and once again 2 years later. They found that the participants were very confident in the accuracy of their memories, but 40% of them had distorted memories after the second year. Neisser and Harsch analyse that this is due to post-event information that has jumbled up their initial memory of the events. Inaccuracy of emotional memories are common, just as they are vivid. Talarico and Rubin found in 2003 that the confidence that one has of his memory is not correlated with the accuracy of that memory.

While post-event information can distort memories, it is recognised that present-views and emotions of past-events also affect one's memory. For example, men who are divorced will reflect back upon events that occurred while they were married in a more negative perception than they actually would had they remained in a successful marriage (Holmberg and Holmes 1994).

Emotion and Memory: Eye-witness testimonials of Titanic Accident

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