Essays on False Memories

Memory is easily one of the most precious facets of any individual’s life. Memory is the culmination of life experiences, both the good and the bad and is unique to every individual alive. For many people there are memories that they would be happy to forget, while there are others who wish they had different memories, or better ones. However, for the average person that concept eliminating bad memories or creating better ones is a matter of wishful thinking and the popular concept of modern science fiction. One such story is "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” ...

<Institution> For many years, false memory syndrome have captured the interest and attention of many experts. These include Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, an American psychologist who spent several years studying how false memories work. One of the limitations of human memory is that it can be altered and changed. Therefore, using eye-witness testimony in criminal and court cases can create negative implication on the lives of the victims and the suspects when false memory is involved. First of all, the limitations of human memory can negatively impact the victims when used in eye-witness testimony. For instance, in 1984, Jennifer ...

Psychology

In a study published in the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, researchers worked on the importance of the prior knowledge before facing the present situations or conditions (Bransford, and Marcia K Johnson 717). Research shows that subjects usually develop semantic thoughts joining the present information and prior knowledge. Therefore, researchers studied the role of prior knowledge and its importance in comprehending the present information. They were trying to show that prior knowledge is not only involved in comprehension but is also necessary for the meaningful information. They also studied the effect of prior knowledge on subjects by ...

Introduction

At an elderly age, people tend to repress memories of their childhood. In most of the time, these memories include those that had a huge impact on a person’s life. the impact could either be positive or negative. Surprisingly, certain memories are only imaginary though in line with the environment into which a person lived. The memories of things that never happened are false memories. However, they could have a big impact on one’s behavior at the later ages of life (Matlin, 2013).

False memories originate from one’s failure in life. People begin to think about what probably went wrong ...

The aim of this paper is to critically assess the research studies, formulate the hypothesis as well as the research methodology concerning the false memories. Benjamin, A.S. (2001) in the article ‘On the dual effects of repetition on false recognition’ presented findings of the impact of study list repetition on false recognition using two factor including aging and time pressure. The experiment reveals dual bases for the decision regarding recognition of words including semantic similarity and decision criteria. Both were affected due to time constraints and old age of participants. The article named “How are false memory ...

Psychology:

False memories are the events which never happened, or events, remembering which is different from the way happened. The most frequently used paradigm in studying false memories is the paradigm, made by Deese-Roediger-McDermott. According to the typical DRM experiments, where participants were studying some words that were related to the non-presented world. The high level of false memories was demonstrated when the participants, mentioned earlier, were asked to remember and recall the words from the lists. The term of False Memory Syndrome was first created by FMSF, and it was called “a pseudoscientific syndrome which was developed to defend ...

False memory amounts to fabricated or distorted recollection of events that never happened in the first place. It is believed that memory is a recollection of things that happened in the past, accurately documenting them, storing them and making them available for remembering any time. A twist is brought in when false memory is put into perspective. This then makes memory get prone to fallacies (Frankel 1993). False memory is common among very many people and can range from mere curiosity to just developing thoughts about something that never happened but one which a person becomes certain it happened. One wonders ...

In life, human beings experience traumatic events; whether accidents, death or any other trauma, such occurrences harm the person’s psychological well-being. In some cases, people are unable to deal with the aftermath of such occurrences; they thus deals with it by pushing it out of consciousness into the sub-conscious. Instead of dealing with the problem, they ignore it through psychological processes; this research paper focuses on the analysis of the process. It is a process known as repression (Loftus, 1993). Repression is a very general concept in the field of psychology researched by many scholars through the years. Psychologists ...

Introduction

The phenomenon of alien abduction has insisted on the emergence of research procedures that would define the concept by which these assumptions could be proven wrong or not. Relatively, it could be realized that in the field of psychology, unlike in the field of mystified science, alien abduction is seen to have been rooted on the distinct course by which experts intend to see why the sensation happens, and why the assumption itself is developed. The exploration of the issue on alien abduction is completely identified with what is assumed as a consistent experience that a person needs to contend with ...

Reply #1: Stephanie McCoy.

I find it very interesting that your earliest childhood memories are linked to moving from one state to another, especially from Florida to North Carolina. It has been proposed that earliest memories are linked to stressful events (Tobin & Etigson, 1968), and I believe that moving from one state to another where the weather is difference exerts some amount of stress on such a young child.

Reply #2: Jashonda Thompson.

Since MS is a neurodegenerative disease, the storage of new information into the short-term slots of memory might be compromised, as you tell. Nevertheless, information stored in our long-term memory should not be affected. I believe ...

- My earliest memory was when I was a three year old kid. I was in a place playing with some kids. I do not exactly remember who these kids were, all I can remember is that we were having fun; yes I was already able to have fun even when I was just a three year old kid. Often, I would also visit their house. Someone would bring me to their house to play and share toys of course. This is the first memory that I remember having. I was able to read that memory is what makes a person and so ...

Introduction

False memory can be defined as a manifestation in which people tend to remember events in a way that deviates from the way the actual event took place. In some instances, people remember things that never happened at all due to the configuration of experience. Usually, false memories may be so vibrant in the human mind and people may hold the memory with a high degree of poise. Therefore, it may be very difficult to convince someone holding the false memory that whatever he/she believes in is not right. Psychologists have argued that the occurrence of false memories is as real as ...

Psychology

Arguably, photographs can function as important memory aids. However, they can as well lead to memory inaccuracies. Many converging line of memory research suggest that photographs have a strong positive influence on the induction of false memories (Freda, Knowels, Saletan, and Loftus, 2013; Henkel, 2011; Strange, Garry, Bernstein and Lindsay, 2011). This initial survey of relevant research seeks to establish the mechanism by which false memories, induced through photographic evidence, might lead to erroneous identification and false confessions. Despite an overwhelming mountain of evidence demonstrating the fallibility of human memory, many judicial systems still place premium on eye witness testimony. According ...

While an individual can be certain that their recollection of events is accurate, eyewitnesses can often get large details incorrect, such as gender, clothing colors, and race. According to research by Frenda, Nichols, and Loftus (2011), there are several aspects of human nature that contribute to what is referred to as the Misinformation Effect. Memories often deteriorate over time, even when the events feel like they just happened yesterday to the individual recounting the experience. However, due to a variety of variables, such as the amount of stress associated with the experience, information provided by fellow eyewitnesses, investigators, and even ...

Memory is a complex sequence of mental processes that encode, store, and retrieve information. Several models were developed to explain how memory works, but research used to show a lot of contradiction. For example, flashbulb memory was considered a separate mechanism than long-term memory because the level of detail recalled was closer to sensory memory than long-term memory. However, because of advanced mapping technologies, researchers today are capable of providing better descriptions of the processes and regions involved in memory storage and retrieval. In the beginning of research, studies focused on creating general theories, which were studies by observing and measuring ...

Introduction

The information that bystander accounts and gives in the court room during the case is referred as eyewitness testimony. The bystander gives a full description of what happen in a specific incident which might be under investigation. The court uses details that they have recollected as evidence to describe what happened in the point of view of witness. Since the past, human memories have been considered as credible source; however, currently human memory and perception have become unreliable since the memories are under attack of forensic psychology, which is a connection between justice systems and psychology (Vicki, Phoebe, & Saul, 1989). Memories are ...