To what extent can a person’s memory be shaped by suggestions? When people witness a serious automobile accident how effectively can they relay the information they observed? If a witness is questioned about an incident, does the line of questions alter the representation of memory?

In trying to answer these questions the stages of memory should first be thoroughly understood. There are many stages of memory including acquisition, retention, and retrieval. Memory is not infallible; in truth it is very often wrong. This happens not by our own faults but because of the way it is stored and re

There is a generally excepted theory in the field of memory that the human memory does not work like a videotape recorder. We don’t record an event and then play it back later, the process is much more complex. Countless scientific experiments communicate that our memories are sometimes distortions of reality and inaccurate images of the past. The human memory is something that is very malleable and over time memory changes, the more time passes, the more changes and distortions one can expect. As new events enter the picture the mind incorporates them into the original memory.

Are there ways to successfully retrieve accurate information? This can be done in many ways. Hypnosis is considered to be one of the best ways of retrieving lost or buried memories. Even when hypnosis does retrieve a memory that is buried it does not involve a big mysterious power. It is simply encouraging a person to relax, to cooperate, and to concentrate in this state people feel free to talk without criticism. However, due to the suggestive nature of hypnosis it is often not allowed in a court of law as evidence.

“Knowledge can be conscious or subconscious. In other words, there’s a concept, which I think is accurate, that you never forget, that is, lose your memory with anything you’ve ever seen or heard, but that your ability to call it into your consciousness is quite limited”

The time that elapses between when an event happened and when someone is in court about it is often very long and in the forgetting curve (shown below) you can see how quickly a person loses a majority of their information.

Some topics in this essay:
Martinez Kresner, , Wilder Penfield, Loftus Ketchum, human memory, happening truth, stages memory, eyewitness accounts, own stories, eyewitness testimony, justice system, acquisition stage, witness trying, truly believe,