Science Magazine's July 1 podcast talks about the role social and group pressure has on memory.
According to a recent study, people not only conform their opinions publicly to social pressure, but passive social pressure can also change peoples' memories subconsciously. The study mapped these subconscious memory adjustments to a specific pattern of neuro-activity in the amygdala
Micah Edelson, a researcher on the study describes in an interview with Science Magazine Podcast how he showed a group of subjects a film, and afterwards asked a series of questions about it. Shortly thereafter, he again interviewed the subjects; this time, however, he provided (false) statements about the film that contradicted answers that subjects had previously answered correctly, and felt confident about. The subjects showed a strong trend towards altering their answers on all of these points.
This social and psychological phenomenon of particular interest to persons in criminal law fields because of its implications for witness testimony. As the host of the podcast points out, many involve more than one witness, and they tend to talk to each other about the people and incidents involved prior to giving testimony. Edelson's study implies that, although witnesses may not be intentionally lying on the stand or in affidavits, social influence may have actually altered even their most confident memories of events by the time they make their statement to the court.
Listen to the podcast here.
As an added bonus, though not necessarily related to Criminal Law, the rest of the podcast discusses the significance and long-term impact of NASA’s space shuttle; exploring the mathematics and applying statistics to the study of terrorist groups; why some penguins seem to be afraid of the dark; and more.
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