False Memory: A Critical Role In Human Life
False Memory
Abstract
This paper explores published work done by several researchers which sheds light on the growing body of literature of false memory. Memory plays a critical role in human life due the important role it plays in cognition including perception, problem solving, decision making and many more factors that we face in our everyday life. Memory plays such an imperative role in society that it can be used to save someone’s life in court or take someone’s life away during murder trials. The dilemma with human memory, science and cognition is that there are always room for errors to be found. This paper focuses on of these errors, false memory, which is defined by Roediger and McDermott (1995) as remembering events …show more content…
It can be defined as representations of events that we think have occurred that have not. The purpose of this paper was to replicate a study done by Roediger and McDermott done in 1995 in creating false memories. This paper went in depth with research to prove the three hypothesis that we had stated: (i) people will have a higher percentage of recalling words in a blocked condition; (ii) critical lures can be recalled in any condition; and (iii) people have a higher percentage of recalling critical lures in a blocked condition. The literature in this paper proved all of three of our hypothesis stated to be true, thus, showing a successful replication of the study done by Roediger and …show more content…
The phenomenon of false memories are well-documented in many court cases where defendants have been found guilty based on the testimony that were received from eye witnesses who were extremely sure and confident about their memory recollection, but later on, through DNA evidence or other measures were found to be incorrect. MIT conducted a study in trying to understand the traces of false memories by planting false memories in the brains of mice (Trafton, 2013). By doing this study, they have found that many neurological traces of these faulty memories are identical to those of authentic memories. Their study further provided evidence that memories are “stored in networks of neurons that form memory traces for each experience we have” (Trafton, 2013). These memory traces are called engrams and are the future study of false memories. Due to the high growing number of false memory situations being reported and the effect it has on everyday life, it is of foremost importance that the research in understanding this phenomenon is continued. By being able to fully understand false memory, and all that is associated with it, many benefits can arise in understanding the human mind, brain, and
Abstract
This paper explores published work done by several researchers which sheds light on the growing body of literature of false memory. Memory plays a critical role in human life due the important role it plays in cognition including perception, problem solving, decision making and many more factors that we face in our everyday life. Memory plays such an imperative role in society that it can be used to save someone’s life in court or take someone’s life away during murder trials. The dilemma with human memory, science and cognition is that there are always room for errors to be found. This paper focuses on of these errors, false memory, which is defined by Roediger and McDermott (1995) as remembering events …show more content…
It can be defined as representations of events that we think have occurred that have not. The purpose of this paper was to replicate a study done by Roediger and McDermott done in 1995 in creating false memories. This paper went in depth with research to prove the three hypothesis that we had stated: (i) people will have a higher percentage of recalling words in a blocked condition; (ii) critical lures can be recalled in any condition; and (iii) people have a higher percentage of recalling critical lures in a blocked condition. The literature in this paper proved all of three of our hypothesis stated to be true, thus, showing a successful replication of the study done by Roediger and …show more content…
The phenomenon of false memories are well-documented in many court cases where defendants have been found guilty based on the testimony that were received from eye witnesses who were extremely sure and confident about their memory recollection, but later on, through DNA evidence or other measures were found to be incorrect. MIT conducted a study in trying to understand the traces of false memories by planting false memories in the brains of mice (Trafton, 2013). By doing this study, they have found that many neurological traces of these faulty memories are identical to those of authentic memories. Their study further provided evidence that memories are “stored in networks of neurons that form memory traces for each experience we have” (Trafton, 2013). These memory traces are called engrams and are the future study of false memories. Due to the high growing number of false memory situations being reported and the effect it has on everyday life, it is of foremost importance that the research in understanding this phenomenon is continued. By being able to fully understand false memory, and all that is associated with it, many benefits can arise in understanding the human mind, brain, and