Memory: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan K. Foster

Author:Jonathan K. Foster [Foster, Jonathan K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: General, Philosophy, Cognitive Psychology, Medical, Mind & Body, Neurology, Neurology - General, Cognition & cognitive psychology, Self-Help, Popular Psychology, Psychology, Neuropsychology, Neurology & clinical neurophysiology, Metaphysics & ontology, Personal Growth, Memory, Neuroscience, Memory Improvement
ISBN: 9780192806758
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2009-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

10. Our memory for events such as a car accident can be influenced by the kind of question we are asked, such that information can be

‘inserted’ into our memory. This phenomenon – known as the misinformation effect – has profound implications for eyewitness testimony

Memory

remember having been presented with the word ‘night’, when they were previously presented with a series of words that are semantically associated with ‘night’, such as ‘dark’, ‘moon’, ‘black’,

‘still’, ‘day’ . . . ).

Less benignly, it is also possible to create – using suggestions and misleading information – memories for ‘events’ that the individual believes very strongly happened in their past but which are, in fact, false. So it remains at least plausible that some abusive events that people ‘remember’ are in fact false memories. In her laboratory experiments, Elizabeth Loftus found that people respond just as rapidly and confidently to misleading questions as they do to questions phrased without bias. In such situations, even if the participant notices that new information has been introduced, this can still become part of their ‘memory’ of the 78

incident – so memory bias can be introduced retrospectively (even if it is consciously identified as such). In one experiment, Loftus and Palmer asked some students to watch a series of films, each showing a traffic accident. Afterwards they had to answer questions about the events. One of the questions was: ‘How fast were the cars going when they - - - - - - - each other?’ The gap was filled with a different word for each group of students, and could be any one of the following: ‘smashed’, ‘collided’, ‘bumped’, ‘hit’ or

‘contacted’. What the researchers found was that the students’

estimates of the speed of the cars was influenced by the choice of verb in that particular question. Loftus and Palmer concluded that the students’ memory of the accident had been altered by the implied information provided in the question.

Loftus and Palmer went on to research this issue further by asking Inaccuracies

students to watch a film of a multiple-car accident. Again, the students were asked about the speed of the cars, with the word

‘smashed’ (implying greater collision speed) being used for one in

memory

group of students and ‘hit’ for another. A third group of students weren’t asked this particular question. A week later, the students were asked to answer more questions, one of which was ‘Did you see any broken glass?’ at the scene of the accident. Loftus and Palmer found that not only did the verb used in the speed question influence the students’ estimates of speed, but that this question subsequently influenced their answer to the broken glass question that was posed a week later. So, those students who had estimated a higher speed were more likely to remember seeing broken glass at the scene of the accident – although there hadn’t, in fact, been any broken glass in the film. Those students who hadn’t been asked the speed question previously were least likely to remember seeing broken glass, when asked about this a week later.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.