Kavanaugh And The Science Of Memory
The fallout of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Brett Kavanaugh has been a fitting—though horrifying—cap to 2018. When the news broke, it was as if each actor immediately retreated to their respective corner of the ring: a denial from the accused, doubt and condemnation from Republicans, and an empty call for an FBI investigation from Democrats. Even in this ‘Year of the Woman’, the whole affair is only a facsimile of a much-needed debate about sexual assault—an absurdist charade where everyone’s acting as if their minds aren’t already made up.
As a student researcher studying the neuroscience of memory and aging, I’ve been troubled by use of memory science as a tool in this pantomime. The brain is so complex—and the research on memory so unsettled—that you’re bound to find evidence supporting your side if you look hard enough. This is no less true for the claim that Dr. Blasey Ford’s accusation is a case of mistaken identity. Posited by Judge Kavanaugh himself in his recent Fox News interview, this assertion is based on the idea that memories are malleable and can be distorted or false. Proponents often point to the fact that Dr. Blasey Ford cannot remember the details of the night in question as evidence that the theory is true.
Though it’s true that false memories exist, they are almost always the product of misinformation suggested to the subject explicitly or covertly. For example, it has been well-established that the behavior and expectations of lawyers, researchers, and law enforcement officials can lead to the misidentification of a criminal—typically through leading questions or similar suggestive language. This phenomenon, called the misinformation effect, applies for personal traumatic events as well, with researchers showing that they’re able to convince individuals into remembering incorrect details about stressful events. However, because Dr. Blasey Ford approached the Democratic Party with her allegations herself, it seems unlikely that she was subject to suggestion of this sort. (The same cannot be said for Deborah Ramirez, whose story arose after six days of assessing her own memories with journalists at the New Yorker.) Moreover, Dr. Blasey Ford’s inability to remember the details of the night in question does not necessarily indicate a faulty memory. Existing studies have shown that negative emotional contexts can ‘narrow’ memories, leading the individual to focus on the central aspects of the incident—such as the identity of the perpetrator—and disregard peripheral details like the location of the party.
Because Dr. Blasey Ford’s recollection is self-reported and presumably independent of strong suggestive forces, existing research on false memory does not support the claim that she has mistaken the identity of her assailant. However, we know little about the likelihood of a memory becoming erroneous independent of outside suggestion—so while I can say her memory isn’t false, I also can’t say definitively that it’s true. Because of these limitations to our knowledge, questioning Dr. Blasey Ford’s recollections can do only little to resolve the issue, and comes at an enormous cost to her safety and wellbeing. We’d do far better by focusing our attention on Kavanaugh’s history of alcohol use. The connections between alcohol use and memory loss are far more robust and well-documented: if Judge Kavanaugh was as heavy of a drinker as is documented in his yearbook, we’d have a stronger reason to believe that Kavanaugh’s memory is faulty, not Ford’s.
The fallibility in our memory is a human weakness on which our system of governance unfortunately depends: it has been and will likely continue to be a vulnerability in our laws and procedures. However, we must take care to remember that these hearings are a job interview, not a trial, and thus that the complete truth of the matter is less important than its implications. As Kavanaugh is a sitting federal judge, denying him the position will not ‘ruin his life’—so we must thoroughly consider if we want a Supreme Court Justice whose record is in question in the first place.
Sabrina Wang ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at s.d.wang@wustl.edu.