Memory and the Law

Rebecca Fordham writes:

"Many experts are challenging the view that eyewitnesses recounting what they saw is the best way of tapping their memory. Some think brain scans could be the way forward." [Memory Mixup, BBC News Magazine, 17 June 2008]

We already have technology that is supposed to detect discrepancies between what the witness remembers and what the witness says - it's called a polygraph or lie detector. Now we apparently need another technology that detects discrepancies between what the witness consciously remembers and what is buried in the witness's unconscious.

The lie detector has been controversial ever since its invention, and features in a Chesterton story called "The Mistake of the Machine". (Of course it is not the machine that makes the mistake, as Chesterton's hero Father Brown points out, but the people using the machine who misinterpret its output.)

• Chesterton and Friends: Lie Detectors
• David Wallace-Wells: The Big Lie (Washington Monthly, April 2007), via AntiPolygraph.org
  

Of course humans sometimes lie, and sometimes this can be detected by the polygraph, but that doesn't make the polygraph an instrument of truth. (For that matter, people sometimes blurt out secrets under the influence of alcohol or torture, or get artistic inspiration under the influence of mind-bending drugs, but none of these are reliable instruments of truth either.)

And human memory is sometimes unreliable, but that doesn't make the brain scan an instrument of truth either. Constructing evidence from the unconscious contents of a brain is no more reliable than constructing history from an archaeological sift through a mediaeval rubbish tip. It may be possible, and may yield some intriguing results, but the results are always speculative and uncertain.

Meanwhile, our "common sense" understanding of the brain and its contents is probably less accurate and less coherent than our understanding of mediaeval waste disposal. That's why psychoanalysts make more money than archaeologists. They do, don't they?

Update

"India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from this controversial machine." [Source: New York Times, via Bruce Schneier]

Intelligence or Fear?

Bruce Schneier has drawn some security lessons from a recent scare on a flight from Sidney to Los Angeles. Shortly after take-off, the air crew found an airsickness bag in the toilet, interpreted the word "BOB" scribbled on the bag as a bomb threat, and decided to turn the plane back. Schneier's account was published in the Sidney Morning Herald and reprinted in his CryptoGram newsletter (August 2004).

We can analyse this incident in terms of organizational intelligence, as follows.

perception monitoring	A member of the crew found the bag and noticed the word "BOB"	Good observation
communication	This finding was shared with the pilot and other crew	Enables collective response
appreciation sensemaking	The word "BOB" was interpreted as "Bomb on Board"	Schneier points out that there are several more likely interpretations.
reasoning action	The captain decided the risk was serious enough to turn the plane around and land back in Sydney.	Schneier writes: "Even a moment's reflection is enough to realize that this is an extreme overreaction to a nonexistent threat."
learning	The Australian transport minister blamed the person who wrote on the bag, calling him "irresponsible at the least and horrendously selfish and stupid at the worst".	Schneier writes: "Irresponsible for what? For writing his name? For perpetuating common flight-attendant slang? It wasn't the writer who did anything wrong; it was those who reacted to the writing."
	Prime Minister John Howard praised the crew for their quick reactions, diligence, and observation skills.	Schneier writes: "I'm sorry, but I see no evidence of any of that. All I see are people who have been thrust into an important security role reacting from fear, because they have not been properly trained in how to sensibly evaluate security situations: the risks, the countermeasures, and the trade-offs."
knowledge memory	Now every wacko in the world knows that all he needs to do to ground an international flight is to write "BOB" on an airsickness bag.	Schneier writes: "Somehow, I don't think that's the outcome any of us wanted."

Further comments and examples in Schneier's blog (October 7, 2004).