Memory and Law
The legal system depends upon memory
function in a number of critical ways, including the memories of victims, the
memories of individuals who witness crimes or other critical events, the
memories of investigators, lawyers, and judges engaged in the legal process, and
the memories of jurors. How well memory works, how accurate it is, how it is
affected by various aspects of the criminal justice system — these are all
important questions. But there are others as well: Can we tell when someone is
reporting an accurate memory? Can we distinguish a true memory from a false one?
Can memories be selectively enhanced, or erased? Are memories altered by
emotion, by stress, by drugs? These questions and more are addressed by Memory
and Law, which aims to present the current state of knowledge among cognitive
and neural scientists about memory as applied to the law
