False Memory

What we see, smell or hear are senses that transmit information into our brain and stores it for a very long time. Therefore memory was long thought to be reliable and there would be no better evidence than eyewitnesses that saw the crime. By studying how memory works and what factors influence what we remember, we can prove that the memory is like a software, that is easy to manipulate.
A good example would be the case of Ronald Cotton who was accused of raping Jennifer Thompson and sentenced to jail innocent for plus forty five years. During the crime, Jennifer Thompson was focusing on memorizing details of his facial structure, his voice, height and other physical features, that helped her identifying the rapist on a photo line-up. However to make sure Ronald Cotton was the right guy she made a composite sketch before she identified him. This shows that our memory is easy deceived and that it is not the most reliable source for evidence. Eyewitnesses have a hard time if the person who committed the crime is not in the line up. Our human mind analysis and chooses therefore the person that looks similar. Elizabeth Loftus a famous psycholgist spent decades studying the human mind. In her famous "Car Crash" study shows how easy memories are influenced by different things. Eyewitnesses should be still used on a court trial, because it is still an important evidence, but shouldn't be totally relied on since what we already know, memories aren't the best evidence to give.