The Validity of Eyewitness Accounts: What you see is what you think!

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Permalink Reply by Lee Darrow on June 12, 2008 at 11:53pm

I'm a professional magician by trade, as well as a hypnotist and hypnotherapist. Eyewitness testimony is, by far, the least reliable form of evidence that a jury can hear, specifically due to things like viewer bias, confabulation (trying to please the interrogator, who may have an agenda of their own), suggestions made by other witnesses and/or the media after the fact and much more.

And that's not even taking into account the possibility of the witness deliberately telling lies on the stand!

A famous attorney in my family once said that the middle word in the word "client" is "lie." He also said that in court, the only person who is not likely to lie to you as a defense attorney is the Judge, because the Judge has all the power. Opposing counsel will lie to you. Witnesses, especially for the Prosecution (or in civil suits, the plaintiff), will lie to you. The arresting officer will lie to you and even expert witnesses will lie to you unless you ask them what you want to know in a manner that does not allow them to weasel around the truth!

And this also does not take into account the possibility of the event being deliberately misleading!

As a magician, I know dozens, if not hundreds of methods to make one thing seem like something completely different to the viewing audience, even if they are only inches away from the event they are observing! In a criminal event, or even in a phenomenological report of an incident of some kind, like a UFO sighting, the possibility of deliberate deception seems to rarely be even considered by many so-called "investigators" and even disregarded as being possible, let alone likely, by professionals!

Which makes it so much fun fooling scientists!

Lee Darrow, C.H.
www.leedarrow.com
www.stagehypnosissafetyclass.com

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Permalink Reply by Tim Brunson DCH on June 13, 2008 at 9:09am

Lee,
Thanks for the reply. I couldn't agree with you more.

I was reading a book last night about neuroplasticity. In it the author used the phrase, "We see with our mind." Considering that only 20% of our sight comes from our eyes and 70% of the brain is somehow involved in the sight process, it makes you wonder if "seeing is believing" should actually be re-phrased as "believing is seeing".

Tim Brunson DCH
http://www.hypnosisresearchinstitute.org

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Permalink Reply by Scott Sandland, C.Ht. on June 13, 2008 at 5:44am

Ernest Rossi implies this in his book "Mind Body Therapy" quite often when talking about State Dependant Memory and Learning (SDML)

How many people get this simple question wrong all the time: What color was the getaway car?

When the witness sees the car they are under great stress. They are understandably scared and have fight or flight hormones pumping through their body. By the time they are questioned they are very safe, calmed down, and in a completely different state of mind than the one they were at while witnessing the event.

The way the information was coded in the memory has a great deal to do with how well it will be recalled.

This applies to our clients as well. Often times the Initial Sensitizing Event (ISE) is a miss-remembered event. Their perception and interpretation of what happened is different than what actually took place. It is cases like these that affect bridge or abreactive techniques can be very helpful.

-Scott Sandland

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Permalink Reply by Tim Brunson DCH on June 13, 2008 at 8:18am

Good response. As far as memory is concerned, I often wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and have an overwhelming feeling that I've seen that person before. Of course, being a certified forensic hypnotist, it only takes a few minutes of superior techniques to discover that the unsavory character in the mirror is also married to my wife.

Tim

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Permalink Reply by Tim Brunson DCH on June 14, 2008 at 10:04am

Reply Part Deux. Scott, I was not able to spend much time on my replies yesterday. So, this is a more thought out reply.

Rossi’s State Dependent Learning is still a very appropriate and valid concept. I think any student has experienced this when they studied for an exam in a relaxed mood, taken a stressful test, and then only recalled difficult answers after they’ve left and exam and again relaxed. Also, the Initial Sensitizing Event is a relevant concept as well.

As a therapist, I consider not only the how the memory (or gestalt) was encoded during the ISE, but what effect that the event had and has on the person both physiologically and mentally. If the event is traumatic enough to cause stress, the fight and flight defense mechanism will lead to increased cortisol flow, IL-6 fluctuations, and eventual adrenal fatigue. Mentally/Neurologically, dominate “brain maps” may be created, which perpetuate an overactive anterior cingulate and result in a continual looping (such as in PSTD) and create further mental dysfunction as the ACG will compete for energy resources (hemoglobin and oxygen, specifically).

To say that we merely need to address the ISE through hypnosis is both an overstatement and an understatement. There is initially a need to quiet the ACG through relaxation and rhythmic breathing (increase serotonin flow). This helps rebalance the brain and reduces dysfunction. The synchronous Alpha created at this point is very beneficial. On the other hand, too many therapists miss the second step. New behaviors/brain maps need to be installed to help “inoculate” both the mind and body from a recurrence. EMDR and EFT are helpful at this point in that through the use of neuronal artifacts they help restructure brain organization (which I call the “brain signature”). Still this is not enough. There is a need to re-map new experiences in the brain to replace the old. Dopamine and ACH flow from the basil ganglia are critical. However, if the patient has been facing chronic stress, such as with PSTD, the flow of these neurotransmitters may have been depleted to the point of fatigue. At this point the therapist can use guided imagery and hypnosis rich in emotive content. (Also, meds and possibly electro-stimulation have proven useful in extreme cases.) I am considering the role of mental games (such as Fast ForWord, which can be found at http://www.scilearn.com), Kinesiology, arcade video games, etc. (Parts therapy and the trademarked Timeline Therapy also address this situation. However, if find that those protocols are best in the less serious situations.)

In summary, tackling ISE with stress and trauma situations is a much more complex situation that most hypnotherapists, psychologists, and counselors normally think. There are two distinct steps. The first one addresses the dysfunction caused by the ISE by calming the mind and body. The second is a re-programming stage which requires open-focused attention and dopageneric and ACH-related stimulation in order to rebuild new brain maps which will compete with and eventually replace the old.

The next concept that applies here how epigenetics apply. Rossi addressed this his amazing book The Psychobiology of Gene Therapy. In that book he postulates how numinous stimulation, which I mention as part of stage two, also serves the role of reprogramming human nature through mutating genes. This supports my insistence that there must be a second stage to the treatment.

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Permalink Reply by Lee Darrow on June 30, 2008 at 8:00pm

"What color was the getaway car?"

BAD question.

It places the IDEA that the getaway VEHICLE was a CAR and negates, through Implication By Authority Figure, that the vehicle was a car. It could have been an SUV, a van a panel truck, a motorcycle, a moped or the felon could have fled on foot around the corner and a car, turning the corner in the next few seconds that simply impressed the witness could be misidentified AS the getaway vehicle when, in point of fact, the witness NEVER SAW ONE!

This also applies to "leading the witness" on the witness stand in a court of law. A skilled Prosecutor or Defense attorney can, quite literally, FORCE a witness to change their testimony through leading questions and badgering them as well as confusing them through rapid-fire questioning. We have all seen it on Court TV and other reality shows.

Judges dislike it, but, unless the other side in the case calls foul, the Judge can't do much to stop it without potentially damaging the Impartiality of the Bench.

As a magician, I've actually used similar techniques to guide an audience's perceptions down the garden path while I prepared to, in a sense, turn on the sprinkler system!

Submitted as proof of how flawed an eyewitness account can be:

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Permalink Reply by Vince Black on June 30, 2008 at 10:50am

What about a clients memory of events that they use as an excuse for being screwed up? When challenged they can hardly tell them same story twice in a row. This is great evidence that maybe they had a fantastic childhood and really dont remember the good parts!

I am saying this a bit tongue in cheek. I do realize that people some times have horrible things happen to them and thats not funny. Sometimes they dont and just imagine things far worse than they actually were and really decide to live their lives out of that skewed concept of the past.

Great topic. Vince.

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Permalink Reply by Tim Brunson DCH on July 1, 2008 at 4:35am

So, are memories ever accurate? If not, does this mean that our legal system can never rely upon eye witness testimony? This is a very important question as many convictions and even capital punishments have been meted out based upon such.

Let’s look at this from a different angle. As humans most of us are blessed with a very effective orbitalfrontal cortex, which among other things allows us to imagine and anticipate. However, this can also lead us to make up (confabulate) memories. This is also a critical aspect of Social Anxiety Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, and OCD. When these anticipations result in the alternative seeking behavior of the anterior cingulate gyrus, which will also lead to limbic reactions and gut feelings, then if the caudate nucleus fails to “turn the page” the never ending looping process will and does overload us.

All sensory observations are filtered through our brain maps, which develop rapidly during the first year and a half and the first six years of life and steadily for the rest of life. As only 20% of our sight actually an ocular function, what we see is basically a matter of past experiences. This means that each and everyone of us is actually living in some type of “parallel universe”. Okay. So this means that two eye witnesses will actually “see” two different accounts of the same event. Furthermore, if what we believe that we “see” is contrary to habituated memories then our experience may have absolutely nothing to do with reality. Magicians call this an illusion. THEREFORE, I pray that I never have to take my chances in a court of law.

Tim Brunson DCH
www.HypnosisResearchInstitute.org

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