Cognitive week 5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Cognitive week 5 - Essay ExampleThe trace decay theory and the hindrance theory aim to explain the implications that result from trying to remember or recall memories these implications being forgetting or distortion of memory which result in causing false memories in an individual. However when we look at the case by Loftus and Polage (1999) on eyewitness testimony we can see how shortly after screening the video clips the participants answers to basic questions regarding what they had seen were inaccurate and false. This leads us to deduce that false memory bother can be a result of short term memory too. In court cases, by and large in 1983 to 1998, false memory in terms of claimed recovered memory of witnesses and victims had been readily accepted by the courts with convictions being solely on the reliability of these recovered memories. However it is clearer now that these alleged recovered memories train been tampered with mostly by therapists of these witnesses and can be hence be false in nature confine their reliability in court. For example a woman accused Dr. Thompson, a memory expert, to have ravaged her. However the doctor was doing a live interview just before the womans violation occurred. It was later discovered during a counseling session the womans recollection of the event had mystify confused and she had simply seen the doctor on television before the assault had taken place a recollection that had been a result of a false memory (Sachter, 1996). Therefore highlighting the huge grapheme false memory plays in the recollections by witnesses which can lead to false or inaccurate convictions if relied on solely. References Loftus, F. & Polage, D. C. (1999). Eyewitness Testimony. Psychiatric clinics of North America. 22, 61-70. Schacter, D.L. (1996). Searching for Memory - the brain, the mind, and the past. New York Basic