Factors Affecting Memory Accuracy Essay

Memory is one of the most important things we have in our life because it involves in almost every part of our mind including problem solving, decision making, and our interest in life. We depend on it because it helps us make good decisions in life. Memory is the solution in learning and thinking and we use it in our everyday life. Think about the first time you kissed someone you loved or the time you learned how to tie your shoe for the first time. Those are all forms of memory whether they are short or long term. If you do not remember anything from the past then you are having a hard time managing your memory. Without memory you would be exposed to new and extraordinary things in life. Take for example, “Aliens, Love where are they?” by John Hodgman and “Jon” by George Saunders. John Hodgman and Jon both teach readers how without memories we would have a difficult time knowing who we are, who we love, and what we want in life.

How is memory encoded and what methods can lead to greater recall? There have been many different models suggested for human memory and many different attempts at defining a specific method of encoding that will lead to greater recall. In this experiment subjects are asked to do a semantic task on a word related to them and an orthographic task in which they analyze the letter in the word. The results of the experiment indicate that the words which where encoded semantically and are related to the self have greater recall.

Memory is one of the most critical parts of cognition. It is important because it is involved in almost every aspect of cognition including problem solving, decision making, attention, and perception. Because of this importance, people rely on one’s memory to make important decisions. The value of one’s memory in this society is so high that it is used as evidence to either save one’s life or kill one’s life during murder trials. But as many of the cognitive psychologists know, human’s memory can cause many errors. One of these errors is false memory which is either remembering events that never happened or remembering events differently from the actual event. This finding of false memory raised big interests among psychologists and

Memory is a set of cognitive processes that allow us to remember past information (retrospective memory) and future obligations (prospective memory) so we can navigate our lives. The strength of our memory can be influenced by the connections we make through different cognitive faculties as well as by the amount of time we spend devoting to learning specific material across different points in time. New memories are created every time we remember specific event, which results in retrospective memories changing over time. Memory recall can be affected retrospectively such as seeing increased recall in the presence of contextual cues or false recall of information following leading questions. Memory also includes the process

Do you consider yourself to have a great memory or do you consider yourself to have a bad memory? Can you remember more than four phone numbers and more than three immediate family members birthdays without using any technology? If you cannot answer those simple questions than maybe you should reconsider on working on your memorization side of your brain. Joshua Foer, the author of The End of Remembering, and Paulo Freire, author of The “Banking” Concept of Education, both write about how important memory is in the world today. In Foer’s passage he states that before paper, books, and modern technology people were expected to remember any piece of information that was given to them. Now people rely on anything that could record information so they would not have to remember it or worry about forgetting. He believes that technology is running our memory. However in Freire’s passage he states that memorizing decontextualizes and is unrelated to present conditions, but memory can concrete conditions of our daily lives. The importance of memory and its functions in the world today is that it lets a person find self-identity, prevents shallow base of knowledge, and sets values.

False memory, second to forgetting, is one of the two fundamental types of deformation in episodic memory (Holliday, Brainerd & Reyna, 2010). Simply stated, false memory is the propensity to account normal occurrences as being a fraction of a key experience that in actuality was not an element of that experience (Holliday, Brainerd & Reyna). False memories are something nearly everyone experience. Furthermore, false memory is defined as placed together, constructed representations of mental schemas that are incorrect (Solso, MacLin & MacLin, 2008). Individuals do not intentionally fabricate their memory. However, perceptual and social factors are a few things that a responsible for manipulating memory (Solso, MacLin & MacLin, 2008).

The brain can be very susceptible to suggestions. Whether it is through hypnosis, therapy, or peers. Due to the ability for the brain to fall to suggestions, false memories can be an issue. False memories can occur though different means, such as a dream that seemed so real it was later thought to be an old memory, or it can even occur through suggestions by others. The fact that the brain can so easily be manipulated is important to be aware of; false accusations against others, by children especially, can lead to unjust prosecutions and destroy lives.

This project is based on false memory and asks the question, “Will words that are presented visually evoke false recall of an associated word more than if words are presented aurally?” False memory has been defined as, “A mental experience that is mistakenly taken to be a veridical representation of an event from one’s personal past. Memories can be false in relatively minor ways, believing one last saw the keys in the kitchen when they were in the living room or in major ways that have profound implications for oneself and others like, mistakenly believing one is the originator of an idea or that one was sexually abused as a child (Smelser & Baltes, 2001, p. 5254). How memory works is an important area that psychologist have been searching for answers to since the early 1950’s and has led to some controversial theories.

It is incredible that false memories can be implanted through suggestions alone! I find it to be amazing how such suggestion can grow into a detailed memory! I found online that “False memory research over the last few decades has also shown that diverse samples of people, and indeed animals, are vulnerable to memory distortion. The historical roots of debates regarding false memory formation might be useful to disseminate to the general public, who might encounter highly critical information about false memory research on the Internet “. If in the future people will continue doing researches on false memories, this could lead to memory

In the article “Crimes of Memory: False Memories and Societal Justice”, Elizabeth F. Loftus, a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Irvine, explores the concept of false memories and the detrimental impacts false memories and memory manipulation can have on an individual’s ability to form meaningful interpersonal relationships, health, and life opportunities. Loftus examines the role that false memories play in wrongful criminal convictions. Individuals can pick up misinformation when they are told, whether intentionally or not, an erroneous version of an event which previously occurred and from biased and leading questions. Not only are individuals accused of crimes they did not commit, but are sometimes accused of crimes that never actually occurred in the first place. The U.S. Department of Justice, due to a

People are susceptible to memory alterations from misleading information to their own self-reported choices (choice blindness) as well as to events that are just seen (misinformation effect). Using these two concepts, the authors used a combination of the misinformation paradigm (misinformation effect) and choice blindness paradigm to examine the long-term effects of choice blindness. Using an integrative approach, the authors hypothesized the influence of other-sourced information to changes (e.g. “In a previous trial, another participant said...”) in memory reports, and the inability to detect alterations in memory reports. Overall, the authors hypothesized the development of false memories from exposure to inaccurate memory reports.

False memories include distorting features of events and situations or recalling facts and memories that never occurred at all (Roediger and McDermott, 1995).

While these studies do not fully exemplify the harmful reality of false memories, they take a step towards understanding how these false memories might occur in real-world settings. As Loftus (1997) discusses, it is only natural to wonder whether or not this research is applicable to real-world situations such as being interrogated by law officers or in psychotherapy. What researchers have learned, and can apply to this practical problem is that there are social demands on individuals to remember and come up with detailed memories. Not only that, but memory construction through suggestion and imagining events has been shown to be explicitly encouraged when people are having trouble remembering events (Loftus, 1997).

Memory facilitates necessary functions in daily life activities, but it is not a perfect mechanism in operation. Goldstein (2011) states that memory is, “…the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present” (p.116). There are many adaptive functions within the complexities of the human memory system and the interlinked constructs between each function leave room for doubt in the accuracy of recollection. Study of the human mind has opened avenues of discovery on the inner workings of our brains and the resulting knowledge suggests that humans are prone to creating false memories and even remembering things that never actually happened. A great deal of information has been written explaining the nature of memory errors and within the following pages a real-life case offers a glimpse into how recall distortions and memory errors can wield unpleasant consequences. Memory errors can be avoided with a significant effort, but the truth remains that no one is perfect and memories are subject to individual bias.

Central idea: Memory is a process of the brain which is prone to certain failures, although specific steps can be taken to guard against these failures.