The Effects Of Misinformation And Its Effects On Memory And Memory

These cognitions also influence the individual’s emotional responses, meaning the same event will evoke different feelings for different people depending on how they interpret it (Beck, 1995).

The study of creation of false memories has been a topic of interest since the 1930s when Bartlett (1932) conducted the first experiment on the topic. Though the results of this experiment were never replicated, they contributed greatly to research by distinguishing between reproductive and reconstructive memory (Bartlett 1932 as cited in Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Reproductive memory refers to accurate production of material from memory and is assumed to be associated with remembering simplified materials (e.g., lists). Reconstructive memory emphasizes the active process of filling in missing elements while remembering and is associated with materials rich in meaning (e.g., stories).

Memory is one of the most critical parts of cognition. It is important because it is involved in almost every aspect of cognition including problem solving, decision making, attention, and perception. Because of this importance, people rely on one’s memory to make important decisions. The value of one’s memory in this society is so high that it is used as evidence to either save one’s life or kill one’s life during murder trials. But as many of the cognitive psychologists know, human’s memory can cause many errors. One of these errors is false memory which is either remembering events that never happened or remembering events differently from the actual event. This finding of false memory raised big interests among psychologists and

The phenomenon of explaining false memory occurrences is rising. Researchers have developed a paradigm known as “Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm” in efforts to examine false memories in depth (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011). In the DRM paradigm, participants are introduced to and asked to memorize a list of correlated words congregating towards a vital subject word that is never introduced (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011). The rate that participants recall this false decoy is alarming. Researchers have provided several explanations to explain for the false memories in the DRM paradigm (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011). The two most notable in explaining false memories in the DRM paradigm are the fuzzy-trace theory and the activation/monitoring theory (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011). While the two theories are particularly dissimilar, they both sustain that information developing throughout list encoding attributes an essential part in false memory construction (Dehon, Laroi & Van der Linden, 2011).

Emotion can also affect the accuracy of memory. It can enhance recall or suppress it. Loftus (1979) was called as an expert witness on the psychology of memory initial of a shop assistant, Melville, had identified a robber Jose Garcia. One of the points she made into memory was research, was about the effects of emotion. Melville was in a state of extreme distress after seeing a colleague was shot, and psychologists have found that arousal of stress have a negative on memory recall- especially the STM.

“Planting misinformation in the human mind: A 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory” was located by searching 'memory malleability' on Google Scholar. The article is written by Elizabeth F. Loftus, an expert in the field. Loftus summarizes research conducted by herself and others, with an aim to identify who is susceptible, what events increase susceptibility, can warnings reduce

The basic principles of REBT have been in place for centuries. Human beings are prone to irrational thinking but are also able to apply rational thinking to resolve their disturbances. Almost all psychotherapists work to facilitate this; cognitive-persuasive methods have yielded good results. Ellis puts emphasis on the interconnected relationship between emoting and thinking, as both assist each other on regulating how the react to stimuli. Specifically, thinking sustains emotion past the initial impact. Ellis describes cognition in three categories: “cool,” “warm,” and “hot,” which are descriptive, evaluative, and strongly evaluative cognitions respectively. “Warm” cognitions will cause emotions, but “hot” cognitions are what sustains them.

triggers item-specific processing. Encoding under such conditions inhibits automatic and unconscious spreading activation to related associates reducing the activation of the critical lure. In comparison, positive affect triggers relational processing, which negative false memory production

Affect influences many areas of cognition and has a large impact on memory (Robinson, Watkins, & Harmon-Jones, 2013; Packard, Cahill, & McGaugh, 1994). It has been shown that extreme emotional stress can impair memory, while moderate levels of emotional stress can improve learning and memory (Packard et al., 1994). In humans, emotional content is remembered better than non-emotional content and is richer in details (Choi, Kensinger, & Rajaram, 2013). However, it is not totally clear how emotion influences false memories. Past research has examined the effect of emotion on false memories and has reported mixed findings where emotional intensity has increased and decreased false memory (Choi et al., 2013). Storbeck and Clore (2005) found definite results showing that negative emotional affect reduces false memories in adults. The goal of this research is to investigate how positive and negative affective states influence false memory in children and the effect of emotional regulation strategies on memory formation.

One group is the overly religious group in which the people believe whatever Mrs.Carmody has to say who calls herself the Messenger of God. Here it is seen that when people come across unexpected, different or horrific situations they tend to throw all their rational thoughts to one side and act very irrationally. They tend to believe anything and everything someone says which may seem to comfort them. Then there is the other group which tries to work towards a more logical solution and not focus on their fears. In “Chemosignals Communicate Human Emotions” a study by Groot J. H. B de and his co-authors, discusses and focuses on chemosignals produced by emotional states of fear and disgust.

Memory does not work like a video camera, smoothly recording every detail. Instead, memory is more of a constructive process. We remember the details that we find most important and relevant. Due to the reconstructive nature of memory, the assimilation of old and new information has the ability to cause vulnerable memories to become distorted. This is also known as the misinformation effect (Loftus, 1997). It is not uncommon for individuals to fill in memory gaps with what they assume they must have experienced. We not only distort memories for events that we have observed, but, we may also have false memories for events that never occurred at all. False memories are “often created by combing actual memories with suggestions received from

Misinformation effect occurs when one remembers changed information as a part of the original event after being “exposed to…misinformation” (Putnam, Sungkhasettee, & Roediger, 2017, p. 36). While most research studies reported that misinformation effect is very common as it occurs whenever “misinformation is provided,” some argue against such statement (Putnam et al., 2017, p. 36). They claim that obvious differences and increased time of exposure to misinformation can reduce misinformation effect and even boost recognition memory (Putnam et al., 2017, p. 36-37). Other researches also suggest that “noticing and later remembering change can reduce interference and sometimes enhance memory” (Putnam et al., 2017, p. 37). Knowing that detecting

Memory facilitates necessary functions in daily life activities, but it is not a perfect mechanism in operation. Goldstein (2011) states that memory is, “…the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present” (p.116). There are many adaptive functions within the complexities of the human memory system and the interlinked constructs between each function leave room for doubt in the accuracy of recollection. Study of the human mind has opened avenues of discovery on the inner workings of our brains and the resulting knowledge suggests that humans are prone to creating false memories and even remembering things that never actually happened. A great deal of information has been written explaining the nature of memory errors and within the following pages a real-life case offers a glimpse into how recall distortions and memory errors can wield unpleasant consequences. Memory errors can be avoided with a significant effort, but the truth remains that no one is perfect and memories are subject to individual bias.

In the next paragraphs I will consider some theories, factors and evidence on cognitive controlling of emotion in terms of

For many people, they live their lives based on emotions. Emotions of happiness, love, success, and many more, could possibly be the most satisfying feelings. Except we commonly experience unpleasant emotions. There are emotions of anger, hatred, sadness, and disgrace. A very important question in the understanding of the human mind and highly related to cognitive science, is how do these emotions affect human cognition and the impact on our abilities to be rational? To tackle this question, we need to understand what emotions are, but not solely in the manner we are all familiar with, we need to understand them from a cognitive nature involving our physiology, psychology, and environment. Cognition, according to the Oxford definition