Free Term Paper on False Memories
Have you ever been an eyewitness at the scene of a crime? If you were, do
you think that you would be able to accurately describe, in precise detail,
everything that happened and remember distinct features of the suspect? Many
people believe that yes they would be able to remember anything from the events
that would happen and the different features of the suspect. Some people, in
fact, are so sure of themselves after witnessing an event such as this that they
are able to testify that what they think they saw was indeed what they saw.
However, using an eyewitness as a source of evidence can be risky and is rarely
100% accurate. This can be proven by the theory of the possibility of false
memory formation and the question of whether or not a memory can lie.
There
have been several experiments done to try to prove that false memories can
indeed be formed. One experiment, for example, was tried with a 14-year-old boy.
The boy was told four memories, one of which was falsely constructed but similar
to that of a true memory. The memories that were suggested took place when the
boy was about 10 years younger. As the false memory was retold to him, he was
asked to explain in detail what he had remembered from that event. Surprisingly,
he claimed to remember the event, even though it was falsely created by the
interviewer and his brother, and went on to explain what he remember to have
happened, details and all. After collecting everything he had said about the
four memories, he was told that one of the suggested memories was made-up and he
was asked to guess which one it may have been. When he couldn’t decide which one
it was, he was told that it was in fact the memory of getting lost in a store.
He was confused and had trouble believing the truth.
Similar studies were
done to a different set of college students and they tended to have the same
results. After giving as much detail about each memory, the students were
interviewed about what they may have written done about what they had
remembered. During the last part of the experiment, each of the students were
debriefed and asked to guess which memory they believed was false. Of the 24
students interviewed, a total of 19 students correctly chose the false memory,
sometimes because of process of elimination, as being the false one (Loftus
& Pickrell p 9 (5p)). This means that there are five students, 21%, which
“testified” that they remembered something that actually never happened. How
would you like to be the accused criminal with one of these five students? Not
quite as reliable as you may have hoped a memory would be.
Loftus, E.
& Pickrell, J.E. (1995). The Formation of False Memories. On the web at
http://caic.org.au/sra-fms/loftus&p.htm