Thursday, June 10, 2010

Modern Salem Witch Trials

For years I've followed Elizabeth Loftus' work on false memories and the horrors of the 1980s/early 1990s when people began claiming to have "recovered memories" of sexual abuse, satanic torture, etc. leading into the horrible trials of daycare providers charged with child abuse.

Here is a video of Elizabeth Loftus talking about her work investigating the ability to plant false memories. Go to 1:12:30 to see the start of her talk and 1:16:10 for her talk on false memories:



At 1:23:00 Elizabeth Loftus shows a video of Alan Alda's PBS show Scientific American Frontiers where she plants a false memory into Alan Alda.

Here is an article in Slate magazine discussing Elizabeth Loftus' work.
She was exactly what defense lawyers needed. The chief threat to their clients was incriminating witness testimony. Loftus could shake the jury's faith in such recollections without attacking the witness personally. Memory errors were natural. The witness, like the defendant, was innocent. Even police, who caused misidentifications by contaminating witnesses' memories with mug shots and lineups, often didn't realize what they were doing.

Over the next 35 years, Loftus testified as a memory expert in more than 250 hearings and trials. She worked dozens of famous cases: Ted Bundy, O.J. Simpson, Rodney King, Oliver North, Martha Stewart, Lewis Libby, Michael Jackson, the Menendez brothers, the Oklahoma City bombing, and many more.



... Then there were prosecutions based on coached child testimony, such as the McMartin Preschool sex-abuse case. To measure children's suggestibility, Loftus and a colleague showed them several one-minute films, followed by leading questions. "Did you see a boat?" they asked one child. Afterward, the child remembered "some boats in the water." "Did you see some candles start the fire?" they asked another. "The candle made the fire," the child said later. Other kids, after being asked about bees and bears, recalled bees and bears. None of these things—bees, bears, boats, candles—were in the films.





... Critics protested that Loftus still hadn't proved the memories were fake. So she raised the ante. She persuaded 16 percent of a study population that they had met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. In a follow-up experiment, researchers sold the same memory to 36 percent of subjects. This was impossible, since Bugs belonged to Warner Bros., not Disney. When critics complained that the Bugs memory wasn't abusive, Loftus obliged them again. Her team convinced 30 percent of another group of subjects that on a visit to Disneyland, a drug-addled Pluto character had licked their ears.

With each escalation and success, Loftus turned the tide of the cultural and legal war over repressed memories. Her experiments became potent evidence in court. Around her rose a flourishing field of research in the malleability of recollection. (For a selection of recent studies, read Memory Editing: Best of the Web.) Psychologists, judges, and initially credulous news organizations became skeptical of repressed memories. Many women retracted allegations of abuse. Lawsuits and regulators began to punish reckless therapists. The frenzy subsided.

For her courage in confronting this menace, Loftus was ostracized by clinical psychologists, denounced as an enemy of women, and accused of molesting her own children, though she had none. Armed guards accompanied her at lectures. And when she dared to reinvestigate a particularly compelling allegation of sexual abuse—the "Jane Doe" case—her university seized her files and barred her from publishing or discussing her findings. (Read Memory and Truth: The Mystery of Jane Doe.) She persisted in the face of these ordeals because she refused to live in a world of lies.

... In 1989, when the Chinese government tried to alter memories of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Loftus used her knowledge of brainwashing to expose the deception. (For more on this episode and her writings on politics, see George Orwell's 1989.)
I was horrified back in the 1980s/early 1990s when there were trials based on bizarre claims of "Satanic child abuse" in daycare centres. Here is a short list of the worst cases:
McMartin preschool
Wee Care nursery school
Read the above links to understand the destruction of innocent people's lives by false testimony based on implanted "memories".

Even today this kind of insanity of false accusations continues. A recent case was that of Tonya Craft. Read here, here.

Over the long stretch of history, the number of "eye witness identifications' of innocent people in trials. There is a long history showing how poor eye witness testimony is. But many, many innocent people have spent years, decades, and even been executed based on this kind of false memory. Worst of all, study of false memory illuminates how the police can manipulate witnesses into giving "honest" false eye witness testimony. Elizabeth Loftus' work is very important. Read the 8 part series in Slate magazine to get a taste of her impact of the judicial system.

The sad fact is that far too many people's lives are ruined by false memories. Science helps illuminate this problem. But most people are unaware of the science. I can excuse ordinary people of not being aware of this phenomenon, but I can't excuse or understand why lawyer, judges, and the legal system has failed to learn the necessary lessons from this centuries long injustice (from medieval witch trials to modern "witch" trials).

4 comments:

kanna said...

RY,
This is a tough one.
So excuse me I didn't read the links.
I was close to a family that went through one of the "abused as a child" messes.
It went on for years much to the detriment of about 5 people. Though the abuser was not named the living parent of the "abused" went through years of awful self-doubt and much more.
It was truly a sad affair.

RYviewpoint said...

Kanna: Yes, this abuse sure messes a person up, and what bothers me is that it sets up a pattern of generational abuse and victimization. What I like about Elizabeth Loftus' work is that she is helping prevent false abuse cases and the horrors they create for innocent victims.

I dated a woman 35 years ago who had been abused as a child. She had dated an abuser and got pregnant by him, but managed to get away. I tried to give her emotional support, but sadly my personality is too "factual" so I ended up chasing her away. I suspect she fell right into the arms of another abuser who knew how to push her psychological buttons. The sad fact was that I could empathize but I didn't give her the emotional "drama" that she needed.

One thing I've come to realize is that there are very few really healthy wholesome people out there. Almost everybody carries scars from childhood traumas and sadly we almost all fall short in giving the next generation the support it needs.

There really should be "hero" awards for stable families who raise healthy kids. Those are the ones who ensure that civilization goes on. We pay too much honour to the mad geniuses of society and not enough to the ordinary Joes who raise health kids, the cornerstone of a stable society. The media -- journalism & arts -- reek with tales of dysfunctional people. Meanwhile there is too little focus on the long hard slog of normal families who raise the foundation of the future: sound citizens who are healthy, happy, and helpful to others.

kanna said...

RY,
Knowing the people involved, this was most likely a case of "false memories" just about as hurtful as the real "abuses".
My parents had to "deal with" four of us spread out in ages. When I think about it, I can't imagine keeping track of which kid needs what style of parenting and at what stage. Add to that two parents with differing points of view and schemata of what constitutes a good future-Oh MY.

You are right about the "mad genius" honor. Maybe it fits the "American, anyone can be great" or just another version of the "log-cabin syndrome".

RYviewpoint said...

Kanna: I got a real chuckle over your "When I think about it, I can't imagine keeping track of which kid needs what style of parenting and at what stage." My mother was a teacher, so when I discovered I had to earn a living and realized I had few real skills, I figured I would be a teacher. My mother was a wonderful teacher. How hard could it be?

Well... I discovered that I had no real talent because I couldn't deal with a class full of kids with agendas different from what I had prepared. This was my first big fat failure in life. It sure took me down several notches.

I had discovered that each kid had his own agenda and I didn't have the skills to "manage" the chaos of the classroom. So I dropped that vocation. It was an expensive lesson to learn, and humiliating.

I still love ideas and think education is the key to success, but I moved over into industry and after "only" 15 years of wandering in the wilderness did I end up in an R&D (research and development) setting where I got to "pretend" to be in education. I got to investigate lots of interesting technology. The group had seminars and ran itself like a learning institution. I got to interact with a number of university profs and their graduate students.

By this time I was mildly competent to deal with the need for "styles of parenting" while dealing with teams of researchers. I had 30 years under my belt to give me gravitas. I was a "success" but never felt myself to be a success. In my heart of hearts, I never mastered the ability to deal with people and their differing needs for "styles of parenting".

So "styles of parenting" strikes a real chord in me. It brings up many memories.