Errors in Recalling Information - Assignment Example

Due Psychology: Extra Credit Assignment Based on what you have learned about perception why do peoplewho witness the same thing report it differently? The reason that people who all see the same things do not remember them the same should be completely understandable. No one remembers the same events the same way. Different people focus on different details of the event than others, there are emotional variables, physiological variables, as well as, unconscious responses by the brain that can limit, effect, or completely distort anyone’s memories. The video explains that memory is not unlike a muscle, if you do not use it; it may atrophy and, essentially, disappear. 2. What emotions are associated with errors in recalling information and events? There are any numbers of emotions that can be involved in recalling a memory of a specific event or person. When negative emotions, like anger, are involved then the individuals recall could suffer from “tunnel memory,” which means that they will only notice specific details and mentally disregard the rest. However, memories recalled as positive tend to be much panoramic as to the events involved. For example, when one witnesses an armed robbery, the person may, likely, remember the gun because of the negative emotions related to the weapon, however, would likely have little memory of what the other people in the room with him looked like. 3. Identify the area of the brain described in the video associated with memory? The part of the brain primarily associated with memory is the hippocampus. The information that our bodies collect is sent as messages to this location. Once there the hippocampus will decide what parts are pertinent and should be retained for later recovery and which memories are not, particularly, relevant. These nonessential memories will be, ultimately, forgotten. Small unimportant details that we are exposed to everyday are often forgotten within 20 seconds of seeing, hearing, or experiencing them. 4. Describe one of Ron White’s systems for recalling information? Ron White’s ability to memorize and recall information is the product of literal brain training. One of his methods for accomplishing this is by associating what one wants to remember with familiar images that are easier to recall. For example, in order to memorize long numbers, like a phone number, he ascribes and image for each number. In the video, he explains, that when he needs to memorize or recall the number 9, for example, he sees in his mind a cat. For him the association between a cat having 9 lives and the number 9 makes the recall of the material easier. 5. Describe one of the methods you can use from the video, text or lecture which improves short-term memory and this how the technique can help you to be a better student. In the video, Ron White explains how one can become far better at memorizing names and the faces that go with them. He explains to take the name of the person and immediately associate it with something else that is more familiar to you. Then at a later time, when you are confronted with this person again you do not have to ask yourself. “what is their name?” Instead you can ask, “what was it about this person’s face or name that was unique to me?” This would be incredibly helpful to all students, because recognizing important figures in history and knowing their names is a relavant aspect of a school education. 6. What part of the brain recognizes faces and in what lobe is it located? It is the “fusiform” is the area, located in the temporal lobe, that is responsible for facial recognition. Human beings are “hard-wired” to indentify the features that will allow the image to be a proper 3-dimensinal image. In other words, we see faces in things that, in fact, do not have them. For example, when we look at the front end of a car; the headlights become eyes, the emblem could be a nose, and the grill resembles a smile. Even when an image is upside down and/or distorted we seek out what makes sense to us. This is something that the human brain is very good at doing. 7. Why is eyewitness testimony often unreliable? Eye witness testimony has often been relied on as the most reliable of testimony; however, that is not, always, the case. Many people have been sent to prison based on eye witness testimony and they were, in fact, completely innocent. Witnesses already start to lose much of the details of the original event by the time they are asked to testify and recall the information on the stand. For this reason, it is foolish and, possibly, unethical to place too much stock in all of the eye witness testimony, no matter how certain the witness swears that they may be. 8. How were the memories of the eyewitnesses distorted? The memories of witnesses are easily distorted. It is not only because of the natural degradation of the details of events. Witnesses of events are easily affected by the suggestions of others, or by taking false facts and incorporating them into their own memory without even intending to. This kind of contamination can alter or completely change the memories of that event. This is not intentional dishonesty on the part of the witness, it does however, make for such terribly unreliable witnesses. Also involved is an occurrence called “unconscious transference,” which is what happen when we recognize a person but are not necessarily certain from where, but somehow that person’s familiarity then rewrites them into the event you are trying to remember. This does not necessarily lead to accurate memory recall. In the video the example given involved the number of witnesses that identified a specific man in the line-up. Most were fairly certain that this man was one of the “robbers” involved in the “snatch and grab” robbery they witnessed. However, although, the man was there in the crowd of spectators he was in no way involved in the crime. The witnesses put his face in the wrong spot. Read More