Please provide a respond in 200-250 words, utilizing the attached document. Please utilize a scholarly resource to respond to the following discussion. Please write in 200-250 words. Cover page not needed. Simply include reference information at the bottom of the page.
I watched a show on memory and the results really shocked me. An experiment was done to show how creditable eye witnesses are to a crime or an event. The setting was in a park and there were two men that had been staged to mock a robbery. During this robbery there were people that where to observe what was going on. Later these individuals were asked to describe the man. not only his height and build, but what color his jacket was, was he wearing a jacket, the color of his hat, what was stolen, what kind of day was it and many other questions that you would think that is you seen some one commit a crime you could easily identify. This was not the case at all. The people that participated in the experiment did very poorly, and many of the participants made up things which I have come to learn as a false memory. A False memory is the psychological phenomenon in which a person recalls something that did not occur. False memory is often considered in legal cases regarding childhood sexual abuse. This phenomenon was initially investigated by psychological pioneers Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud the reason I bring this up is due to its relevance in the case of Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton. This woman was sure that this man had committed this crime and this is all it took to get this man convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison. Imagine that you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time and this happened to you or even worse you not even being in the area. This man was later freed after 10 years of his life was lost due to someone’s false memories. Lucky for him that test in DNA exists of he would have spent the rest of his life in jail. This proves that eye witnesses to an event are not credible. The mind is a fascinating place that sometimes creates things that are not always there and if you believe it hard and long enough it’s true.
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