Amnesia

How are false autobiographical memories created? This question is important because false autobiographical memory influences the self. An autobiographical memory is the memory we have of an event that happened at a particular time and place in our past (Walker, 2016, lec 3). Therefore, a false autobiographical memory entails peoples’ recall of events that they think they experienced when in fact that event did not occur (Simone, 2016, lec 3). Furthermore, in answering the question above, we…

Television shows such as Law and Order: SVU have brought the concept of repressed and recovered memories to pop culture. Repressed and recovered memories can be described as memories of traumatic events from childhood, that is forgotten then recalled later in life. This is a controversial topic in the mental health community; with the draw surrounding the validity of these memories. Working with doctors and researchers, judges within the court circuits must pick a position to get the justice…

On a July night in 1984, the homes of two women were broken into and both women were sexually assaulted. During a photo array one of the victims identified the attacker as Ronald Cotton and later confidently confirmed this suspicion during a physical line-up. These identifications mixed with other evidence resulted in the arrest of Ronald Cotton in August later that year. Cotton was later found guilty of both accounts of rape and received a life sentence plus fifty-four years in prison.…

“Memory – like liberty – is a fragile thing.” - Elizabeth Loftus. We tend to think about memories like photographs. They’re snippets of the past, and we go over the most monumental (or embarrassing) moments in our lives time and time again, sometimes just to remind ourselves of who we are. It's such a fundamental part of our daily routines that we forget how reliant we are on memories. Every thing from the taste of strawberries to the name of that film you saw yesterday are all parts of what…

1. According to Loftus’ research, memory is changeable, variable and we can reconstruct it over time. We don’t just play back the recorded memory. The process is much more complex that we think it is. However, the most common reason of reconstructing memory is faulty-eye witness memory. People reconstruct memories when inaccurate or misleading information entered their memory brain system and cause an alteration and contamination of the memory. They start to believe that they actually…

In the 1980s and 1990s, repressed memory was one of the most controvercial topics in psychology and law. Repressed memory is the psychological process or unconsciously keeping something out of awareness for extended periods of time because of the unpleasant emotions associated with it. In other words, keeping a memory hidden for a long time because it is an unpleasant memory. My father has some repressed memories. After my parent's divorce, my dad was dating a younger women. I do not know the…

I came across this article years ago on TED called “Elizabeth Loftus: How reliable is your memory? (2003).” Loftus is a psychologist who studies memories. She studies false memories and false memory is when a person is very susceptible to a suggestion which can create a memory of events that never really happened. I think most people can relate to having a false memory, I know I can but, Loftus goes more in-depth with her findings on false memory and shows you just how detrimental your memory is…

Benjamin, A. S. (2001) studied false memory and the effects of repetition on age, and time pressure on false memory. Two experiments were performed. In the first experiment researchers predicted that the effect of repetition would differ in outcome between young and elderly participants. Between younger and older participants, younger participants will show a decrease in false memory while it might increase for older participants. This study involved two different age groups, three different…

False memory syndrome is a psychological phenomenon that can cause a high impact on someone's life. They are recollections of fabricated events that have not actually occured in reality. What this paper aims to address are the various reasons why false memories occur, how easily memories are manipulated, and how this affects individuals regarding the criminal justice system. Changes to protocols regarding eyewitness testimony has changed standard procedures in court and the outcomes of the…

Literature Review Misinformation, the intentional or unintentional spread of false information, has been shown to alter, suppress, or impair a person’s memory of an original event (Loftus & Palmer, 1974). The earliest experiments that studied false memories found that additional postevent information provided to an eyewitness can alter that person’s memory of this event; when exposed to leading questions or additional information following the event, participants were more likely to forget the…