Ambiguous crimes and inattentional blindness: the science of eyewitness memory
5/22/202630 min
If you saw a crime, how clearly would you remember it? What about if you were questioned years… even decades later?
Eyewitness testimony is an important part of the justice system, so how much do we know about our ability to recall details?
In part three of our four-part series, Forensic, we take a deeper look at eyewitness memory. Because it's not just about what we can or can't recall, there's also the risk that we may not even recognise a crime as it's happening. It turns out we're sometimes less observant than we think, because of a phenomenon called inattentional blindness.
Don't forget to send us your questions based on the Forensic series, you can reach us at allinthemind@abc.net.au
Guests:
Celine van GoldeAssociate Professor in Legal PsychologyUniversity of Sydney
Hayley CullenLecturerSchool of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University
Credits:
- Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
- Senior producer/reporter: James Bullen
- Producer: Rose Kerr
- Sound engineer: Roi Huberman
You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
[electronic sound] ABC Listen: podcasts, radio, news, music and more.
Annabel Crabb0:05
[whimsical music] Hello, I'm Annabel Crabb. Now, I wouldn't say I'm a hoarder exactly, but I do hang on to things. It's not just you and me, Australia's oldest library is crammed with stuff that isn't books. Terrible paintings, old menus, human hair. Is this history or hoarding? Come and have a rummage through the story of us, told by our stuff. Search for the History or Hoarding podcast on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
Sana Qadar· Host0:37
[gentle music] You are at a bus stop. A young girl is dropped off not long after you're there, and minutes later, an older woman comes by and gives the girl a bar of chocolate, and then they walk off holding hands. Did you just witness a crime? The unsettling answer is you might not be able to tell.
Hayley Cullen· Guest1:01
With kidnapping, I think, you know, if we get the audience to think about it, when they hear kidnapping, they probably think stranger comes up to child, child makes a fuss, kicks and screams, kidnapper pulls them into their van, drives off. But that mental representation we have might be very different to how kidnapping actually occurs.
Sana Qadar· Host1:23
And if you didn't recognize it as anything out of the usual at the time, how much of it will you be able to remember