FYS 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Eyewitness Memory, Hindsight Bias
8 Sep 2016
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Right sided conservative president, george bush, has been critiqued for being prejudice against the islam and muslim states after the tragedies of 9/11. One of our mantras in science is that the absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence . We have an abstract understanding that people can remember the same event differently. When our memories are challenged, we may neglect all this and instead respond emotionally, acting as though we must be right and everyone else must be wrong. Overconfidence in memory could emerge from our daily experience. Our lack of appreciation for the fallibility of our own memories can lead to much bigger problems than a misattributed quote. Memory failures have in fact led to false convictions and even death sentences. Whose memory we believe and disbelieve influence how we interpret controversial public events.
