Your Lying Eyes – Perception, Memory, and Justice

Sunday, September 9, 2018
First Aired:
Sunday, November 29, 2015

What Is It

The criminal justice system often relies on the testimony of eyewitnesses to get convictions. Yet more and more, psychological science demonstrates how unreliable eyewitness reports can be. Moreover, jurors have all kinds of cognitive biases and unconscious influences, and they rely on dubious folk psychological theories when assessing evidence. So, how should psychological science be used to improve our justice system? Is there a way to figure out whether a particular eye witness report is reliable? Or for a truly just system, must we forbid all testimony that depends on the capricious faculty of memory? John and Ken take the stand with Daniel Reisberg from Reed College, author of《感知与记忆科学:司法系统的实用指南》。

Listening Notes

越来越多的研究指出人类记忆的不可靠性和易变的本质——我们能在法庭上相信它吗?肯对在法庭上使用目击证人的证词表示严重担忧，因为风险如此之高。约翰的回应是指责他危言耸听。他坚持认为，尽管有一些不准确的地方，但证人仍然是刑事司法系统中不可忽视的一部分。

John and Ken are joined by Daniel Reisberg, Professor of Psychology at Reed College. Reisberg discusses several examples of the malleability of memory that he has come across in his research, including how his team were able to plant false memories of entire episodes that never happened. He goes on to explain how similar false memories could inadvertently be created in an eyewitness's mind through police questioning. To shed light on how one should judge the reliability of a memory, Reisberg leads John and Ken through the evaluation of a hypothetical eyewitness account.

The first question from the audience asks how we can be better eyewitnesses ourselves. When identifying a face, Reisberg explains how focusing on memorizing key features is actually unhelpful; the best method is surprisingly much more holistic. Other questions point to the future of the criminal justice system, the effect of personal beliefs on memory, and whether modern technology has affected our memory. The episode ends optimistically, with Reisberg claiming that despite the complications surrounding memory the criminal justice system is nevertheless headed in the right direction and slowly improving.

  • Roving Philosophical Reporter (seek to 7:27): Shuka Kalantari speaks with Angel Gonzalez, who spent 20 years in jail because of a false eyewitness identification.
  • 60-Second Philosopher (seek to 46:14): Ian Shoales muses over the many ways that the mind's eye is also easily swayed.

Transcript

Comments(2)

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Friday, September 7, 2018 -- 12:32 PM

I looked back at the remarks

I looked back at the remarks of others and my own on your original post. Since that time, I have dove headfirst into the writing of various cognitive scientists (even, perish the thought, Freud) on how we perceive the things we see, and how, many times, you see things differently from me; I see them differently from Fred; Fred's reality is fundamentally flawed (or vastly more of a gift than any of us can imagine in any best-possible world); and those truly creative people have certain cognitive advantages over all the rest of us. Another post presented, somewhere along the history of PT, talked about cognitive biases, and we have even talked about the loss of the lobster load.(see David Livingstone Smith's recent post). Anyway, I was going to say something different about perception, memory and justice, but after finishing Rawls' historical tome, I 'just' could not think of anything 'epiphanical' to offer. Thanks for your patience, over these last four years or so. Love the stimulation Philosophy Talk brings to my mundane world.

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Saturday, September 29, 2018 -- 12:41 PM

A couple of related quotes

A couple of related quotes arose while reading Hume, specifically his ENQUIRY concerning HUMAN UNDERSTANDING:
第117页，第4节，题为“对理解的怀疑和怀疑”:“……我必须承认，一个人是不可原谅的傲慢，他的结论，因为一个论点，逃脱了他自己的调查，因此它不存在……”和171页，第10节，奇迹:“……我们经常对其他人的报告犹豫不决。我们平衡引起怀疑或不确定的相反情况;当我们发现任何一方的优势时，我们都会倾向于它;但是，与敌人的力量成正比，他的信心还是减少了……”当证人互相矛盾时，我们对任何事实都有怀疑;当他们人数稀少，或性格可疑时;当他们对他们所肯定的事物有兴趣时;当他们犹豫地作证，或相反地，用过于暴力的誓言作证时……"
Mr. Hume had a pretty good grasp of human understanding, even though the original work ,A Treatise on Human NATURE, was a flop. The national events of the last week have been troubling. But people are sick of it, some on record as having said: WHO CARES? I have 'sceptical doubts' about the immediate future...