Remembering why: Can people consistently recall reasons for their behaviour?

“Human memory can play a number of roles in the legal system. For example, witnesses recall information about crimes or other legal matters that is used during investigations, and may also be asked to testify at trials about their memories for events. Witnesses and defendants may be interviewed several times over the course of an investigation and trial, and the legal process may span months or even years. Thus, the issue of memory consistency becomes important for determining the quality of this memory evidence.

(…) Human memory may be treated as evidence by the legal system, with significant consequences, such as monetary awards and criminal convictions. Therefore, it is important that any assumptions made by the legal system about memory processes be scientifically tested. Our study explored two contexts in which memory is used as evidence, and our findings suggest that some of these assumptions may be unsupported. Just like eyewitness memory for faces or actions, memory for our own mental processes is prone to inconsistency. (…)  our study is only an initial examination of memory for reasons behind behaviour.” via