Memories Of Things Unseen: Article Analysis

“Memories of Things Unseen” states the importance of the study of memory and gives examples of how people’s memory can be changed based on external suggestions. The article talks about false memory and how people’s memories can be altered just by being questioning or having an instance mentioned to them. The article states many studies and events where this has occurred, especially during crime scene investigations where the longer the person is investigated, the more prone they are to confessing to a crime they did not commit or are more prone to convicting a person they have never seen before, such as the rapist example. There are many studies that show that new information can “contaminate memory reports.” Loftus states “suggestive methods are indeed capable of leading to false beliefs or memories.” The lost in the mall procedure shows how people’s memories can be altered with a few sentences. A …show more content…
Imagining an event that has not happened people can cause them to think that it had occurred to them too. There are different types of suggestions that lead to false memory. For example the misinformation effect is when there are inaccuracies in memory because of incorrect information that was provided after the event has occurred. Strong suggestions are when subjects believe that an event has occurred to them after being exposed to family members’ true and false experiences that were said to be true. Guided imagination is when subjects are led to imagine that an event has occurred even though it hasn’t after being exposed to the concept of that event. Suggestions that include a suggested narrative also can alter a person’s memory or cause them to think something has happened when it actually did not occur. The slime example shows how when people came back for a second interview, most of the subjects developed this memory and thought they actually did