Memory, Eyewitness Testimony and the Bystander Effect

So the last class period we had a little fun.  I dressed up as a robber and proceeded to steal a couple of cell phones.  The goal was to see if students could remember details of the incident and along with details about the robber (me).  As we learned, our memory is not as good or as accurate as we would like to believe.  There were different descriptions, different details, and highly inaccurate drawings.

But the point I was trying to make was proven.  So let's take a look at some clips below about memory, eyewitness testimony and I'll even throw in a couple of fun clips for us to end with.

Elizabeth Loftus-as profiled in your book:

Ferguson shooting and relating to unreliability of eyewitness testimony

 

 

Also, in socio-psychology there is a well-known effect called the bystander effect.  For short, the bystander effect implies that the larger the group of people in a setting, the less likely an individual will be to help someone in need.  So let's look at some examples below.

 



The death of Kitty Genovese

 

and some fun ones to end with

 

 

Sheldon from Big Bang theory on eidetic memory