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The Human Mind 63

THINGS WHICH ARE NOT FORGOTTEN

Whether they like it or not, criminals and liars unconsciously commit emotional details of
their dishonesty to memory; ‘handles’ guiding them to stores in the lower brain will trigger
other parts of memory into action, such as the date their dishonesty started, what their feel-
ings were at the time, what they did and thought about doing with the money and who else
was involved. Once one handle gets pulled, neurotransmitters fire away and activate other
memories.

When someone responds to a question with ‘I don’t remember’, this may or may not be
true. Everything depends on what the person is being asked to remember, the type of memory
involved and the number of handles potentially available.

In all cases, a spontaneous statement that a person does not remember, when he has made
no attempt to access his memory, is a very powerful sign of deception.

If you genuinely don’t remember, how do you know there is anything to forget?

REHEARSING FALSE EXPLANATIONS

In some cases, a liar will carefully rehearse how he plans to deal with questions and will try
to commit the answers to memory, but they will go into a different area of the brain to a real
experience.

MEMORY CORRUPTION biting comment that we wished we had
said but that was only thought of later. Then
Extracted from Mapping of the Mind:16 this new, re-edited version is tucked back
[Most] memories are not pure recordings in storage. Next time it gets an airing it
of what happened but are heavily edited may pop up with the fantasy comment still
before being laid down. The process of attached, and this time it will be difficult to
falsification gets another boost each time distinguish it from the genuine memory. So
memory is recalled. As we go over things by gradual mutation our memories change.
that happened we add a bit, tweak a bit,
lose a bit, tweak a fact here, tinker with a However, MRI studies suggest that the brain
quote there and fill in any little bits that may activity used in recalling pure memory differs
have faded. We may consciously embellish from that which produces a false recollection.
the recollection with a bit of fantasy – the

When interviewed, the liar may deliver his answers too quickly or have varying response
times that do not correspond with the complexity of the question or matter concerned. He
may spontaneously list out alternatives, but they will normally be concerned with the content
of the story. Unless he is an exceptional liar, his answers will lack commitment and his non-
verbal responses will not be synchronized.

Evidence that answers have been rehearsed is often a strong sign of deception

16 By Rita Carter, ISBN 0520219376