Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: One of the areas most widely studied in forensic psy-chology in recent years concerns the possibility of discriminating between true accounts and false ones. An account may fail to describe the reality of a situation because people consciously lie, or because of faulty memory. Popular belief about the functioning of memory attrib-utes the majority of inaccuracies in a statement to the first explanation (Mira & Diges, 1991). Thus, if a person reports an event that never happened, or did not happen as they report it, this is inevitably due to the fact that they do not want to tell the truth. However, research over several decades has shown that memory is far from perfect, and is limited not only in its capacity, but also due to the effect of innumerable fac-tors that distort it, leading to errors (unintentional) of both omission and commission. That is, giving rise to false memories (the most comprehensive review in Spanish is Diges, 1997). Thus, leaving aside the intentional provision of false data, the majority of accounts of events are riddled with errors beyond the person’s control. The commonest sources of error are perceptual problems, the interpreta-tion of events, the inference of non-processed informa-tion, the passage of time and/or the incorporation of false information after the event. Every time witnesses recount an event, think about what happened, and above all answer questions for which they do not have a clear response based on their own recall, their memory undergoes transformations that accelerate its deterioration beyond that which would result from the passage of time alone. Even our most vivid memories are sprinkled with details that never existed. And that includes those mem-ories that we appear to be able to summon up as if they had just occurred, as though we were reliving them,
Author: Antonio L. Manzanero
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1535888375