Psy 270 Week 1 Reflection

Good afternoon everyone! I hope you all did well on the midterm exam we had last week. This course has been a very interesting challenge to tackle so far, and the assigned readings for Week Five were no exception. We learned through the assigned chapters and article on Professor Elizabeth Loftus that memory, an aspect of every individual which many believe as infallible, is actually fallible. In fact, the memory of a human being can be manipulated or limited, either intentionally or unintentionally, through various ways. This can cause problems as small as a family disagreement, remembering you were somewhere you never were, or even a failure to accurately recall a special event; however, it can also affect the reputation and sometimes
The reason for this because the eye witness may not have experienced enough time with the ethnic group of the person and thus wrongfully accuse someone who looks similar to the person who was actually responsible instead of looking for distinguishing features such as a scar or tattoo that could do a better job of helping identifying the right individual.
A third way the memory of an eye witness can be affected is when they hear incorrect information from someone other than the person questioning them which can indirectly alter what the eye witness is able to remember. This could possibly affect the description of an individual involved, when the incident occurred, or the events that led up to the incident.
Needless to say, the effects memory limitations of an eye witness could have on an innocent person range from the destruction of their reputation to the loss of their freedom. The relationship between a person and their loved ones may end up damaged or completely severed, their standing in the community destroyed, or time behind bars while the person truly responsible continues to live their daily