PSYC1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: False Memory
16 Jan 2019
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Document Summary
A memory for things that happened to you when an event experienced and reported widely (e. g. an earthquake, celebrity death) occurred. People often claim to rmb "where i was and what i was doing" when an important event occurs but the reality is that such memories behave just like normal memories. We may have more confidence in them, but they degenerate with time at much the same rate. Since all memory is reconstructed, each time we "recall" (reconstruct) it, whether or not it is true is never clear. Emotion per se does not mean a memory must be true. There is no "feature" of a memory (e. g. sensory detail) which means it must be true. Participants estimated higher speeds when questioned using more intense adjectives. Participants remembered were more likely to recall seeing broken glass when questioned using more intense adj. Sometimes entire phenomena or alternate world views are supported by nothing but memory.
