What Is False Memory Really Interesting?

The McMartin Preschool Abuse Trial: Many children and people were harm due to false memory accusations. In the case, the Social Worker, Kee MacFarlene her style of interviewing the children was wrong and misleading to the witnesses. A social worker is conducting an interview, must be done in an ethical manner and style. Their goal is to have the witness give the correct and honest answers to the questions asked. A valuable lesson for a Social worker when they are speaking with a client is not to contaminate their client’ memory is to ask questions that are not suggestive, leading, and misleading questions. After viewing the different Elizabeth Loftus clips, I realize that your memory can be easily manipulated, by making you believe something

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).

Another argument against the Memory Theory involves it’s circular nature if fake memories are implanted within a person who did not actually experience what the memories are about, and only ‘seems to remember’, via brainwashing for example.

In summary, the discussion about the false memory syndrome is far from being complete. False memory syndrome makes it difficult to judge the viability of an event and is very hard to banish from ones memory. A small false creation embeds in the mind for a very long time. Once an individual creates a false memory, it becomes part and parcel of his or her life. Therapeutic sessions should be taken with care so as to reduce false memory implanted to reduce

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

Many false-convictions have occurred because of a witness believing their memory as correct, when in actuality the memory had been altered. The Innocence Project has had numerous cases in which victims pick out a defendant from a line-up believing they are the real perpetrator, however, years later DNA evidence proved the man was innocence. While victims should be treated with respect, and have their voices heard, it is vital to take the findings in account to make sure the judicial process is as fair as possible, for both the accused and the victims. In a Ted Talk Loftus says memories are much like Wikipedia pages, we can go into them and edit, yet so can others. As Loftus’s research gave other scholars the ground work establishing memory is not as infallible as original thought, scholars should do more research for further

A psychologist named Elizabeth loftus has studied for how easy the brain is to manipulate into believing false things. She essentially believes the brains can be manipulated to a point where someone else can alter our memories that make one, them. She says that false memories that there could be a benefit to false memories because it's like a system that allows us to update our memories when errors are found in a memory.false memories. The problem is that the system could be used against us and there is no defense to counter it.

False memory, second to forgetting, is one of the two fundamental types of deformation in episodic memory (Holliday, Brainerd & Reyna, 2010). Simply stated, false memory is the propensity to account normal occurrences as being a fraction of a key experience that in actuality was not an element of that experience (Holliday, Brainerd & Reyna). False memories are something nearly everyone experience. Furthermore, false memory is defined as placed together, constructed representations of mental schemas that are incorrect (Solso, MacLin & MacLin, 2008). Individuals do not intentionally fabricate their memory. However, perceptual and social factors are a few things that a responsible for manipulating memory (Solso, MacLin & MacLin, 2008).

Elizabeth Loftus is a cognitive psychologist. I chose her because I love criminal justice and psychology. Her studies have to do with both, so she was the perfect choice. She is known for studying memory. She plays a huge role in psychology and the legal system. She conducts studies about how memory affects eyewitness testimonies. She has written more than 400 publications (McNally, 2007). She is different than other psychologists studying memory because she investigates memory for naturalistic events (McNally, 2007). She does not study memory by using a list of words or studying nonsense syllables like Ebbinghaus did. Elizabeth Loftus has published plenty of articles talking about how alibis being inconsistent does not equate to them being liars. Inconsistency does not equal accuracy. She has also written articles about how confidence does not equate to honesty.

When a person has a fabricated or distorted recollection of an event, they are experiencing a false memory. A false memory is a mental experience that is mistaken for a veridical representation of an event from one’s personal past. (Kendra Cherry) There are two types of false memories: minor and major. A minor false memory can be some as simple as someone thinking they left their keys on the table, but actually left them in the bedroom. A major false memory could be someone believing they have been abducted from aliens. False memories occur frequently and can take control over someone’s life. Therapists have many approaches that they use to try and help one recollect their memory. While trying to help, they may actually worsen the problem. Research supports the salience of false recollections over accurate ones in people, potentially indicating that every person in a given society can fall victim to their effects. Revealing that this theory has more truth than many expect affecting many people within our societies.

The Ted talking that I watched was “How reliable is your memory?” presented by Elizabeth Lofuts. By listening to her talk, we could easily identified her argument. She disagree with the saying that memory is reliable. In this video, Elizabeth introduced an idea of false memory at first, and then let us realize that our memory was not that trustworthy. In order to convincing us, she used the case of Titus, many experiments that she have done or other people have done, and some statistical datas.

I think that false memories is one of those quirks of our brains and can as minor as believing you left your keys in the kitchen table, when they were on the coffee table. False memories can also be something major, such as believing that one was sexually abused as a child. False memories could be caused by imagination instead of a true memory, because the client may know that there is an underlying problem, but may not be able to recall what really happened because of repressed memories. They may be looking for an explanation to why they feel the way they do and they unknowingly make up a false memory in order to be able to explain why they have a mental health issue. There also may be a neurological or psychological dysfunction causing distorted

False Memories are fundamentally, unintended human errors, which results in people having memories of events and situations that did not actually occur. It’s worth noting that in humans there are both true and false memories, these false memories occur when a mental experience is incorrectly taken to be a representation of a past event. For example, when people are asked to describe something that happened at a particular time, people rarely deliver accurate answers. Based on research, in eyewitness testimony, the confidence people show while recalling

False memory studies also directly focused on eyewitness testimonies. Gerrie, Belcher and Garry (2006) studied video clips, as they most likely reflect real-life. By omitting either crucial or non-crucial steps they tested what participants were likely to falsely recall. They found that false memory effects did occur for those shown the video with the non-crucial steps missing. These participants were more likely to fill in what was missing and falsely remember non-crucial steps in between. This was found without any external suggestions on what should occur. This can benefit eyewitness testimony as by determining what aspects of a situation are more susceptible can better determine what memories may be false.

The article is about false memory. The researchers are trying to find out the effect of planting positive false memory in an individual. The authors of the article are; Cara Laney from University of Leicester, Erin K. Morris from University of California, Irvine, Daniel M. Bernstein from Kwantlen University College and University of Washington, Briana M. Wakefield from University of