Forensic psychology and eyewitness memory. Find out all about it here.

Forensic psychology and eyewitness memory. Find out all about it here.: "Cognitive Processes

The formal study of eyewitness memory is usually undertaken within the broader category of cognitive processes.

Cognitive processes refer to all the different ways in which we make sense of the world around us. We do this by employing the mental skills at our disposal such as thinking, perception, memory, awareness, reasoning and judgment. Although cognitive processes can only be inferred and cannot be seen directly, they all have very important practical implications within a legal context.

If you accept that the way we think, perceive, reason and judge is not always perfect then it’s easy to understand why cognitive processes and the factors influencing these processes are studied by psychologists in matters of law; not least because of the grave implications that this imperfection can have within the criminal justice system.

The study of witness memory has dominated this realm of investigation and for a very good reason because as Huff and Rattner note:

the single most important factor contributing to wrongful conviction is eyewitness misidentification.

Although eyewitness memory was being studied over 100 years ago it was really in the 1970’s that applied research really began to take off."