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Reliability Of Memory Essay

1151 Words5 Pages

The oxford dictionary defines memory as “the act or fact of retaining and recalling impressions, facts, etc.; remembrance; recollection”, in short it is described as the act of using existing knowledge, but psychology questions the reliability of our memory, does the memory work as the tape recorder or does our mind make changes over time. The reliability of memory has been a topic of interest for long and psychology has contributed to the understanding remembrance in many fields of interest. One of them is the legal system, were eyewitnesses testimony is a very commonly used method, but as it is based on the memory, its reliability may easily be questioned. People like to view their memory as a very accurate record of facts, however researches …show more content…

The researcher set in the room and the participants entered one by one.
Then the researcher presented the video of a car crash to the participant and gave a questioner randomly, which asked the participants to estimate the speed of the car, with the misleading wording “hit” or “crash”.
When the participant finished the questioner, the debriefing form explained the aim of the experiment and also the results. Participants had access to the report of this experiment.

Results
In experimental condition A (see appendix G) the speed estimate varied from 20 km/hrs. to 100 km/hrs. While in experimental condition B (see appendix H) the speed estimate varied from 50 km/hrs. to 160 km/hrs.
Mean and Standard deviation in condition 1 and

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