Are we too confident with our memories? Recalling memories is something that’s done on the daily, and is a very easy task to accomplish. We remember our last meal, what we did last weekend, and much more. Memories are recalled on our leisure and when they matter, like being an eyewitness to a crime. Regardless of what is being recalled the memory is firm; that is that the way the memory is remember is exactly the what it happened. For how much confidence we put in our memories our memories are not reliable.
Most people tend to think our memories are stored safely away inside our brains just like a safe folder on a computer, and we can pull up that memory exactly as we saved it. Although that would make everyday life easier that is simply …show more content…
Having the fully memory can mean the difference between right and wrong, guilty or not guilty. There was an example of Neil Tyson’s memory betraying him from the same article Why Our Memory Fails Us (Chabris, Simmons). Tyson had incorrectly quoted a line from President Bush’s speech from the 9/11 attacks. Even though Tyson was overconfident in his memory of what he “heard” the President say, there was no evidence of the quote he “heard”. What Tyson was really remembering was a speech by President Bush two years later about the Challenger shuttle explosion. Even though in Tyson’s case it wasn’t life or death it has been for some people. Knowing that memory is like a game of telephone then having an eyewitness sharing their testimony in court may not be as helpful as we once thought. That eyewitness will be asked multiple times to recreate their memory of what happened, and not only that but they will be questioned on it. Making the witness question their memory and start to fill small detail gaps in memory with assumptions. Assumptions, right or wrong, that may have no effect on the case or change the case around completely. Simply the wrong or incomplete memory of an eyewitness can change the life of an innocent
Most people tend to think our memories are stored safely away inside our brains just like a safe folder on a computer, and we can pull up that memory exactly as we saved it. Although that would make everyday life easier that is simply …show more content…
Having the fully memory can mean the difference between right and wrong, guilty or not guilty. There was an example of Neil Tyson’s memory betraying him from the same article Why Our Memory Fails Us (Chabris, Simmons). Tyson had incorrectly quoted a line from President Bush’s speech from the 9/11 attacks. Even though Tyson was overconfident in his memory of what he “heard” the President say, there was no evidence of the quote he “heard”. What Tyson was really remembering was a speech by President Bush two years later about the Challenger shuttle explosion. Even though in Tyson’s case it wasn’t life or death it has been for some people. Knowing that memory is like a game of telephone then having an eyewitness sharing their testimony in court may not be as helpful as we once thought. That eyewitness will be asked multiple times to recreate their memory of what happened, and not only that but they will be questioned on it. Making the witness question their memory and start to fill small detail gaps in memory with assumptions. Assumptions, right or wrong, that may have no effect on the case or change the case around completely. Simply the wrong or incomplete memory of an eyewitness can change the life of an innocent