The human memory, while in many ways an amazing tool, is highly flawed. Although we have the power to remember a vast amount of information, our mind can use our memory to essentially "trick" us, sometimes even to the extent of remembering in detail events that never transpired. Despite these limitations, the testimony of eyewitnesses has become the most crucial evidence towards conviction in criminal cases (Loftus 9). In this way, our legal system depends on the reliability of an exceptionally faulty source. Jurors in court cases tend to believe eyewitnesses (Gorenststein 616). Faced with conflicting or ambiguous testimony, they are tempted to put their faith in people who actually "saw" an event. This faith in eyewitnesses maybe misplaced, however. Although eyewitness accounts are essential to courtroom testimony, studies clearly show people who say; "I know what I saw," often mean, "I know what I think I saw." And these people may be wrong (Migueles 259). Psychologists have attempted to measure the ability of witnesses to recall specific facts surrounding an emotional event, as in the article "Recall, Recognition, and Confidence Patterns in Eyewitness Testimony," by

all three. In the acquisition stage, for instance, one's ability to effectively perceive events is compromised by current amount of stress, length of exposure to the information, expectations, amount of violence, the presence of a weapon, and perceptual activity at the time. In the retention stage, one's memory can be tainted by something as simple as another witness claiming the perpetrator had brown hair, when in actuality it was blonde. (Loftus 21)

The participants were divided into two groups: intentional and incidental. Both were shown the same film depicting a kidnapping and were given the same recognition tests after the film. The intentional group was asked to pay attention to the content of the film and write a description of its plot after viewing, while the incidental group was asked to estimate the duration of specific events during the film. This distinction was made to test the effects of selective attention on memory since the intentional group would in theory have an advantage in remembering the events of the film. (Migueles 261-62)

When eyewitnesses to actual crimes make mistakes, the results are devastating. In more than a thousand cases in which innocent people were convicted of crimes, errors

During the process of information received and retrieved, there are numerous persuasive factors to alter the memory. In the studies reviewed, when compared to the experiment by Migueles and Garcia-Bajos, it is understandable that the information was not retrieved to its full text or truth, and is proven that this eyewitness testimony is an

witnesses will attend to during a crime. Stimuli were broken down into two broad categories: central and peripheral. Central information coincides with and is both essential to and proximal to the crime, while peripheral information is unrelated to the crime. These categories are further divided into actions and details. (Migueles 257-60)

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2173
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)