To greater and lesser degrees, we rely on our memories to give us an accurate portrayal of the past. The potential consequences of failing to live up to this ideal are minimal in many circumstances but can become critical in others, such as remembering a crime that one has witnessed. How can we discriminate between memories that are an accurate reflection of a prior experience and those that are not? This book attempts to answer this question by considering basic behavioral and neuroscientific research on perception and memory and its relevance for understanding how errors might occur when rem ... More

To greater and lesser degrees, we rely on our memories to give us an accurate portrayal of the past. The potential consequences of failing to live up to this ideal are minimal in many circumstances but can become critical in others, such as remembering a crime that one has witnessed. How can we discriminate between memories that are an accurate reflection of a prior experience and those that are not? This book attempts to answer this question by considering basic behavioral and neuroscientific research on perception and memory and its relevance for understanding how errors might occur when remembering complex events such as those experienced by eyewitnesses. The book is organized around six key questions: (1) How do we perceive and remember faces? (2) How do differences in basic executive processes (e.g., working memory) place limits on what we remember? (3) How do we monitor and control our memories (metacognition)? (4) How do we distinguish between false and genuine memories in ourselves and others (personal and interpersonal source monitoring)? (5) How does emotional arousal and stress affect what we remember? and (6) How does the act of remembering change what we can later recall? Each chapter discusses how basic research in a given area, highlighting factors influencing the accuracy of memory and how this understanding relates to applied research on eyewitness testimony. Finally, this book explores the implications of this synthesis for helping real-world eyewitnesses.