How Reliable is Human Memory - Case Study Example

How reliable is Human Memory? Memory is one of the most important cognitive processes humans depend on. It is also a process that rules people’s behavior and helps deal with matters in everyday life. Usually, it is defined as the cognitive process of capacity to retain and revive events, facts, impressions, and recall previous experiences. Therefore, the common definition suggests that memory is some sort of tape recorder registering everything a person sees and experiences. However, this is not really so, because memory is rather reconstruction of what happened than an accurate retrieval of information. In other words, human memory is not as reliable and objective as people tend to consider it to be. There is an idea that emotions do enhance human’s ability to keep events in memory and even memorize events with more details. According to Kensinger, emotions have a memory-enhancing effect on the brain compared to the events devoid of emotional import (Kensinger 241). It means that emotional events are the most vivid memories and are recalled easier, with greater clarity and more details. Even though the likelihood of this suggestion is great, one should not forget that it is not only emotions a person lives by and sometimes emotions can induce forgetfulness. For instance, a person suffering from depression has a poorer memory; some emotions may even cause amnesia. Memory is not a shelf which we put some events on, to take them away at any time. Every time when we recollect something, an event is fixed as a new one (the same physiological mechanisms start working lik when we start recollecting something), therefore our reminiscence changes a little under the influence of those conditions in which a person is recollecting. The details of reminiscence every time change depending on where and whom they are updated for. Some of our memoirs can not be ours at all. Sometimes a person is telling a story and then it appears that it happened not to him, but to one of his friends. A reminiscence time in principle have no communication with reality. An American researcher Elisabeth Loftus instigated her relatives to tell her examinees the invented story about how they were lost in a supermarket in their childhood. Later the considerable part of these examinees already told the story about what stress they endured in the childhood having stayed alone in an unfamiliar place, supplementing the story with details, which were not in the initial story (Loftus 586). The people quickly started believing in truthfulness of this story. “Loftus recruited 24 students and their close family members for her 1995 study "The Formation of False Memories." She asked each family member to provide her with three real childhood memories for their student, and then sent these memories in a packet, along with one false memory, to the study participants. The false memories were about getting lost on a shopping trip and included real details, such as the name of a store where they often shopped and siblings they were likely with” (Wilson 1). In order to define the abilities of human memory, it is essential to discuss the systems of memory. Some systems can be called reliable and other are not very reliable. Every experience, impression or movement leave an impression, which can stay for rather long time, and under the corresponding conditions can be recalled and become a consciousness subject. Thus, memory is a difficult mental process, which consists of several separate processes connected with each other. Memory is necessary for humans. It allows to accumulate, keep and then to make use of personal life experience. Human memory is not just a uniform function. Many different processes participate in it. There are different types of memory: sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory (Loftus 724). Sensory memory system holds quite exact full picture of the world perceived by sense organs. Duration of picture preservation is very small - 0,1-0,5 seconds. It is enough to close the eyes, then open them for a moment and close again. The accurate, clear picture stays for some time, and then slowly disappears (Loftus 723). Short-term memory holds another type of material. In this case the withheld information represents not full display of events, which occurred at the sensory level, but direct interpretation of these events. For example, if one hears a phrase he remembers not the sounds but the words. Only 5-6 words are usually remembered. Having made a conscious effort, repeating material again and again, it is possible to keep it in a short-term memory for vaguely long time. Direct impresses of sensory memory can't be repeated, they remain for tenth fractions of a second and it is not possible to prolong them (Loftus 723). There are three processes in memory: storing, preservation and reproduction (Loftus). These processes are interconnected. The organization of storing influences preservation. The quality of preservation determines reproduction. The process of storing can proceed as instant imprinting. The condition of an imprinting arises at the time of a high emotional stress. Its may be connected with the periods of sensitive development of mental functions. At repeating the same irritant the imprinting of it happens unintentionally. Intention to keep material in memory is voluntary storing. Organized repetition of material for the purpose of its storing is called learning. Significant increase in ability to learn is traced in the age of 8 - 10 years and especially increases at the age of 11 -13.. At the age of 14 relative decreases of rates of memory development is traced. New growth begins in 16 years. At the age of 20-25 years memory of a person engaged in brainwork reaches the highest level (Loftus 586). The orientation on storing doesn't bring the desirable effect. Its absence can be compensated by high forms of intellectual activity even if this activity was not directed on storing. And only the combination of these two components creates a strong basis of the most successful learning and makes storing productive. Storing of material, presented in a finished form, is carried out less successfully, than storing of the material found independently during vigorous activity. What is stored in course of vigorous intellectual activity, remains in memory strongly, than something that was stored randomly (Loftus 724). Although human memory is sometimes reliable, it should be considered unreliable, because of a range of factors, which may influence this cognitive process. These factors are both external and internal. “Your memories help you separate friends from enemies. They remind you not to eat too much ice cream or drink cheap tequila because you remember how horrible it felt the last time you indulged. Or do you? One conversation with Elizabeth Loftus may shake your confidence in everything you think you remember. Loftus is a cognitive psychologist and expert on the malleability of human memory. She can, quite literally, change your mind” (Wilson 1). External factors are those coming from the environment. More specifically, this may be what other people say or do at the moment the memorable event is taking place, and the manner in which these words are said. Furthermore, elements like image, noise, and smell can distort a memory because a person gets distracted by these elements involuntarily. Thus, one cannot concentrate on one subject or object only and memorizes events, experiences, and feelings while under the influence of a certain external factor. In other words, human memory perceives and processes contextual information. Speaking about the unreliability of memory, it is essential to discuss false memory. False memory prescribes distortion of real event or replacing them with something imagined, According to Roediger and McDermott (1995) false memory is “remembering events that never happened or remembering them quite differently from the way they happened” (Roediger & McDermott 803). A great number of false episodes in human memory are the products of the the confusion of some aspects, which occurred at different times in the past. Such episodes may be caused by a mistake in the source of memory. Some of them occur after the suggestion of a consultant, may be a resuts of dreams. A person may believe that he /she remembers the evet clearly and insists on it, but the facts may disprove it. This testifies that memory can’t be called reliable. If to turn to the real facts, it usually appears that something important is confused: time, place, participants (Loftus 723).. Roediger and McDermott (1995) explain: “Just as perceptual illusions can be compelling even when people are aware of the factors giving rise to the illusion, we suspect that the same is true in our case of remembering events that never happened.. When people know that the accuracy of recollecting cannot be verified, they may even be more easily led to remember events that never happened” (Roediger & McDermott 812). In addition to this, it is not only the process of memorizing, which may be affected by external factors but information retrieval as well. The fact human memory is not a perfect mechanism to deal with storing of information was first paid serious attention to and even proven in 1974. Elizabeth Loftus, an American psychologist, who works in the field of cognitive psychology and is an expert on human memory, claimed human memory resembles a Wikipedia page as it is created by a great number of people’s experiences. One of her first experiments shows that reconstruction of memories depends on how the questions about a particular event are asked. While conducting an experiment, Loftus played videos of car accidents and then asked the interviewees about what they remembered happening; the answers showed the result depended greatly on how the scientist formed the question. For example, when she asked about the speed the cars were going with and used the word “smashed” to describe the collision, people tended to say the cars were going faster than when she used the word “hit” to describe the same situation (“ Reconstruction”). The creation of false memories is also possible, especially if one experienced some sort of pressure from others or had his or her credulity called into question (“ Formation”). The study testifies that it is quite easy to influence human memory without a person whose memory has been influenced even knowing it. This does prove memory is not reliable. What is more, human memory can be influenced by internal factors, such as the emotional state of a person as well as one’s knowledge obtained during life. In fact, in regard to emotions, one can learn the truthfulness of this argument by experience. If a person is in a good state of mind, he or she tends not to pay attention to negative situations and concentrates on positive ones. The same works in case a person is in a bad mood, for he or she notices only drawbacks, concentrates on what bothers him or her and, consequently, may miss the whole picture. A person’s life experience can also influence the cognitive process under consideration. Memory is recorded in two parts of the brain. According to Chuck Brainerd and Valerie Reyna from Cornell University, children rely on the part of the mind storing information about what really happened, while adults depend on another part and focus on the meaning of what happened (Shaffer and Kipp 2). It means that the more experience a person has, the more he or she is likely to rely on it and form false memories, even subconsciously. Once again, this fact shows memory is not as reliable as one may think. The present evidence shows that human memory cannot be regarded as reliable due to the fact it can be easily influenced by both external and internal factors, such as personal experience and suggestions of other people. Even though memory records events with high accuracy, it cannot be relied on because it works only in cases of emergency and not enough data exists on it for now. Human memory is not a tape recorder; it is rather a puzzle comprised of experiences and ideas communicated from one person to another. Works Cited Kensinger, E. A. "Remembering Emotional Experiences: The Contribution of Valence and Arousal." Reviews in the Neurosciences. 15.4 (2004): 241-251. Print. Loftus, E., and J. C. Palmer. "Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory." Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 13. (1975): 585-589. Web. 18 Feb. 2015. Loftus, E., and J. Pickrell. "The Formation of False Memories." Psychiatric Annals. 25.12 (1995): 720-725. Web. 18 Feb. 2015. Loftus, E . Our changeable Memories: Legal and Practical Implications. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4, 231-234 , 2003) Roediger, H.L. and McDermott K.B.Creating False Memories: Remembering wprds no presented in lists. Journal of experimental psychology: Leaning memory, and cognition,21, 1995, (pp. 803-814) Shaffer, D., and K. Kipp. Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence. Cengage’s Learning, 2013. eBook. Wilson, Jacque. Trust your memory? Maybe you shouldn't, CNN Web 18 Feb. 2015. Read More