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Repression
There is this issue of whether children used: repression, or created false memories. Creating false memories when being asked to discuss it an eyewitness testimony. According to Freud theory on repression, a repressed memory is the memory of a traumatic event unconsciously retained in the mind, where it is said to adversely affect conscious thought, desire, and action as a result children will have trouble recalling information or of their inability to access it consciously. According to the journal of Law and Human Behaviour children who have been through traumatic events will find it harder to remember an a event as opposed to a non traumatic event  Goodman, G., Golding, J., Helgeson, V. (1987). When a child takes the stand: jurors perceptions of children's eyewitness testimonies. Journal of Human Behaviour and Law, 11,1-189. In study conducted by Goodman they found that non abused children were more accurate in answering specific questions, made fewer errors in identifying an unfamiliar person in pictur..

Structure of the Brain Associated with Eyewitness Testimony
Hippocampus The hippocampus is one of the brain structures located within the medial temporal lobe and is considered one of the main structures of the brain association with eyewitness testimony because it is the area of the brain that is important for the formation of declarative memories (long term memory). Noa, O., Kao, Yun., Peter, Sokol., (2007). Development of declarative memory system in the brain. Nature Neuroscience. 10, 1198- 205. . Declarative memories are long term memories that can be consciously remembered which include: specific events and factual knowledge. In eyewitness testimonies children are called upon to use declarative memories, specifically episodic memory. They use their long term memory because they are asked to recall specific events that took place in the past. For example, do you remember what the doctor said to you last time you visited him? Research has on children eyewitness testimony found that children do not have accurate long term memories for events that happened in the past. Gail, G., Rudy B., Davis, L. (2001). Effects of past abuse experiences on children's eyewitness memory. Law and Human Behaviour, 25, 1-30. . . This region of the brain is not fully developed until around 2-8 years of age however there are mixed findings for when exactly the hippocampus stops maturing. . Wertlieb, D., Rose, D. (1979). Maturation of maze behaviour in preschool children. Developmental Psychology, 15,478-479. . Even though the hippocampus may stop maturing at a certain age, according to behavioural evidence shows that declarative memories ability is known to develop from childhood right up till adulthood. . Other research from children testimonies have found children have better memories the older are. Extensive amount of research looked at age differences in which children can remember episodic memories (e.g.; their first day of school, attending a friend's birthday party) .In one study elementary and preschool children were questioned about delay interval about real life past experiences and found significant development differences in what children recall. Elementary school children were more successful at this task then preschoolers. Overall children need more prompts to remember past events and recall fewer details than older children.

Parahippocampal Cortex
-The parahippocampal cortex another structure in the area  of the brain associated with eyewitness testimony. The function of the parahippocampal cortex is involved in spatial memory, planning and problem solving beyond serving as a gateway to the hippocampus. This brain region communicates with other brain regions association with memory such as the amygale and

Prefrontal Cortex
The prefrontal cortex is another brain region involved in eyewitness testimonies because its function in relation to memory is its ability to create memories that are vivid and that have a lot of contextual detail. Research in the Journal of Law and Human Behaviour found children testimonies on accurately recalling  details of events increases with age, as did the ability to answer specific questions, identify the confederate and resist suggestion. .  Many research studies have found that children tend to give few details of the event and sometimes distort them in eyewitness testimonies. This brain region is one of the last region of the brain to develop. Short term memory is another memory system that occurs in the prefrontal cortex. Short term memory is defined as the ability to store information for a short period of time and if it is rehearsed enough it will be transferred into long term memory. This is important to know in eyewitness testimonies because studies have shown children have problems transferring and with long term memory as discussed previously   Some of the functions that rely on the prefrontal cortex is working memory. . . Department of Health and Human Services. (2011) Maturation of the Prefrontal Cortex. Retrieved from http://www.hhs.gov/opa/familylife/tech_assistance/etraining/adolescent_brain/risk_taking/index.html.

Temporal lobe - it is involved ins several functions of the body including: hearing, memory, meaning, auditory stimuli, memory, and speech. They also play a role in emotion and learning. The temporal lobes are concerned with processing an interpreting auditory stimuli. This is a major location for memory storage and association with memory skills. -Parts of the temporal lobe shows late maturation and are one of the last brain regions to mature. The grey matter in the temporal lobe continues developing until it reaches it's peak development at age 16 for both males and females. (Giedd & Blumenthal, 1999). The amount of grey matter was 10% greater in males than in females.

Amgydale -The amydale is located deep within the temporal lobe of the brain and is involved in basic emotions and motivations (Lehr, 2011). The amygdale is involved in several functions of the body which include: storing and determining what memories are stored and where the memories are stored in the brain (Lehr, 2011). The determination of whether memories are stored is depended how big of an emotional response an event invokes. -The amygdale does not stop developing until later on in adolescence, research studies have found that in normal developing children the amygdale increases substantially in volume between 7 to 18 years of age (Schumann & Hamstra, 2004). This has an influence on how children will remember events because children will have poor memories for events prior to age 7.

Hippocampus - The hippocampus is the brain structure in the medial temporal lobe that it is important for long term memory formation and declarative memories (Tulving, 1998). The hippocampus is not fully developed until the age of 3 or 4 years which explains why most people have infantile amnesia and why children are not accurate and reliable sources of information for eyewitness testimonies (Patricia, 2007). Before this age the children brain is not mature enough to form long term autobiographical memories which includes memories for specific experiences and memory for the personal facts of one's life (Patricia, 2007). Recent research has also found that due to children underdeveloped hippocampus children do not have accurate long term memories for events that happened in the past (Department of Justice, 2011). Eyewitness testimonies can be impacted by long-term memory because even when children attended to details of their event the information may not enter long term storage. The reason for this is because in the information processing model, if the sensory information about an event is not directly transferred into short term memory it will be lost. As discussed previously in the brain developmental section, children have poor short term memory the younger they are. In further research studies, it was found that the likelihood that sensory information will transfer into long term memory increases with age. This is shown to be attributed to : selection attention, developmental changes in children. Younger children remember less than older children, provide fewer details in their narratives. These differences is due to a lack of memory traces in younger children. All children remember the key point of information related to the event than peripheral details (Department of Justice, 2011). Other supporting evidence for the hippocampus being undeveloped in the early years of childhood was According to research findings declarative memories in children become better and better during the process of development (text).

Parietal Lobes -it is often involved in working memory for processing of spatial information. It is also associated with movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli (Lehr, 2011). - it is one of the four lobes of the cerebral hemisphere. The upper and lower parietal lobes are the areas of the brain that develop first. The cortical grey matter changes reached their peak of development for males at 11.8 years and 10.2 years for females (Giedd & Blumenthal, 1999). Frontal Lobes - This area is associated with planning, reasoning, problem solving and they mature later on. This region is that third last region to mature. The cortical grey matter reached their peak of development also at age 12 according to neurologists. The maximum amount of grey matter in the frontal lobe increases during preadolescence with a maximum size occurring at 12.1 years (Giedd & Blumenthal, 1999). It is one the last areas of the brain to fully mature (Giedd & Blumenthal, 1999). Younger children have poorer short term memory than older children. This would make sense because the frontal lobes (pre frontal lobe) is what holds short term memory and since this brain region is the last region to fully mature it explains why the undeveloped frontal lobes would influence short term memory. According to neurologist Marliee short term memory does not reach full capacity till around age 15. Between the ages of 2-6 children should not be giving eyewitness testimonies because children's frontal lobes are sill maturing which causes them to have limitation in thoughts and perceptions (Alessi & Ballard, 2001). They see things as "black and white" at this age. An example provided by piaget is, a child may reason that that because the water goes down the drain when the stopper is removed, he or she will also disappear down the drain (Piaget, 1954), which could induce a fear of water. This type of thinking influences the way memories are stored and creates distortions in both recall and recognition (Alessi & Ballard, 2001). Children way of thinking could distort events they are asked to recall in eyewitness testimonies which is one of the reasons why judges do not see children as credible as adults (Alessi & Ballard, 2001).

Prefrontal cortex - responsible for refreshing information in the stores (rehearsal and manipulating information. These results suggest that PFC regions that are important for the formation of detailed memories for experiences have a prolonged maturational trajectory (Ofen &Yun, 2007). It is found in research studies that the prefrontal cortex is one of the brain areas that develop last (Gotgay, 2005). Also the inferior parietal cortex on the left side developed last . Corpus Callosum - One of the function of the corpus callosum is to be able to transfer information from one hemisphere to another. This brain structure is one of the last regions to mature  and in order to accurately recall an event both hemispheres have to be fully developed (Alessi & Ballard, 2001). Therefore jurors and judge should take caution when using a children as eyewitness below a certain age because both hemispheres may not have been fully developed which could cause child to not accurately recall on the stand (Alessi & Ballard, 2001). Research has found that potential jurors judged children to be less credible eyewitnesses than adults (Goodman, Golding & Helgeson, 1987).

Short term/ Working memory

-is defined as the short duration and limited capacity memory system that simultaneous stores and manipulates information (Lehr, 2011). Baddley and hitch developed an alternative model of short term memory which they called working memory. The main component of working memory system all increase in capacity during childhood, children knowledge increases, the use of effective strategies increases, and they develop a greater awareness of their own memory system. (Text) this is information retained in limited capacity in short-term memory stores. Working memory consists of three components: central executive (responsible for control)-- phonological loop (stores and rehearses speech based information and processes verbal and acoustic information)-- visuospatial sketchpad(processes visual spatial information). (lecture) According to psychologists children working memory improves over time which is why older children have better memory than younger children.. The reason why children memories are poorer when they are younger is because children working memory was not fully developed. They tend to not use their phonological loop effectively by rehearsing the information or developing strategies to transfer their information into long term memory therefore it gets lost. When short term memory is active the prefrontal lobes become active but since this region of the brain is one of the last regions to mature, it explains why children have poor short term memory.