Zombie Theory

Memory Distortions in Coerced False Confessions:
A Source Monitoring Framework Analysis
LINDA A. HENKEL1* and KIMBERLY J. COFFMAN2
1Fairfield University, USA
2Florida International University, USA
SUMMARY
Confessions are routinely offered as evidence and are potentially damning to defendants. However,
not all confessions are truthful. Suspects can be coerced into falsely confessing to crimes that they
did not commit, and in a subset of cases, the confessors come to genuinely believe they committed
the crimes and sometimes create vivid ‘memories’ of their activities. Against the backdrop of a
model of cognitive processes involved in correct and incorrect remembering known as the source
monitoring framework, this paper examines how coercive tactics routinely used in interrogations
may give rise to memory illusions and distortions that can contribute to false confessions in which
individuals believe they are guilty and create false memories to support those beliefs. Copyright
# 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Which means that if you predend to be a zombie, you might turn into one.