reliability of eye-witness accounts

It’s another ‘I saw a program sometime ago’ post so apologies for that right up front.There was this program (could have been a Dr Robert Winston program, not sure) that was looking at memory and perception.They did a test. The test was they took a bunch of people from diverse backgrounds and took them on a walk in the hills all day. At one point in the day they wandered past a bunch of people in uniforms with guns and stuff all acting furtive and guarding something. The subjects didn’t know anything about this event being part of the trip and when they got back to base they were quizzed on what they saw.The amount of confusion as to what had been seen be each witness was astounding, from number of people seen, what they were holding, how they were dressed, what they were doing and so on. It is clear from this that human memory is a very subjective and confused process.In short anything that takes the majority of its credibility from eye witness reports only must always be taken with a pinch of salt.This message has been edited by ohnhai, 28 February 2005 14:41 AM

How on earth do degenerating moral standards affect a person’s ability to accurately remember events? ooh, I’m gonna sleep with my neighbours wife ohh dear there goes my memory of last Tuesday! You might have a point with beer and narcotics but as there have been ever present in society that one is a moot point.I believe is fairer to say that we realise that human memory is not infallible and thus have to take that into account rather than to assume witnesses are always Unreliable It’s not that they shouldn’t be trusted, just that they may be in error of what they believe to have witnessed.

Its happened to me I’m sure it’s happened to you, but have you ever glanced at some thing like a shadow on a darkened wall at night and you brain has registered SPIDER only to look back to try and find the spider, only to realise its the moon light creating a spider like shadow by shining through that curvy coat hook?Or caught a glimpse of someone walking down the street that you recognise so you turn round and go up to say HI but to your embarrassment discover this person doesn’t look anything like your friend?What about optical illusions? These things are designed to trick your eyes, you even know this but they still cause your eyes/brain to tell you things about the world that aren’t true.Our brains are forever reconstructing our view of the world based on resonable peripheral vision and then filling in the detail from memory and the small area of pin sharp detail at the centre of the retina. (Bout the size of your thumb nail with arm at full stretch) Your brain constructs the 3D world you experience entirely in your head and from a multitude of sources; peripheral vision, central vision and memory of previous experiences. There is every chance that the brain might mis-classify something if glimpsed in peripheral vision only.This is why you miss read certain words. You first identify words by their shape before looking at the component letters. Just pay attention to what you are doing when reading this post; you don’t painstakingly scan each letter of each word. You read along the sentence and recognise the words. So in this manner if you are driving down the street and glance at a sign on a van that readsJ Boggis & Sons Shopfittersthere is every chance you seeJ Boggis & Sons ShopliftersSame with T-Shirts. If some one walks towards you sporting a FCUK T-shirt, I would lay odds on you reading it wrong, and having to then look back and pay close attention to what it actually says.The simple fact is our eyes and brain make approximations and errors in portraying the world to us and then can make further errors in laying those memories down.--edit-- replaced the 'T' word for the word 'Fact' --This message has been edited by ohnhai, 28 February 2005 23:54 AM