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Memory Distortion Case Study

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Memory Distortions Memories are not an exact record of events, so having an eyewitness to report a scenario is very risky. Most eyewitnesses have a vibe that just screams ‘Trust me, I was there!’ Thus, memory distortions usually occur when the witnesses remember a scenario differently than the events that occurred. Take the scenario in which two police officers come to two different conclusions based on different witness reports; both witnesses had different views of what had happened before the accident leading to the two officers having a distorted outcome. There are several different factors that may distort one 's memories, two important ones that are scene in these forms of events are the misinformation effect and the serial-position effect. Both play a role when referring to the …show more content…

The use of these keywords made only the slightest change to how the questions could have been comprehended, yet it made a big difference to how the witnesses had answered. Both witnesses did not have an accurate idea of how fast the car was really going, and this might be due to the misinformation effect. According to the misinformation effect, if someone was to witness an event and somehow have received some incorrect information, such as the two officers’ questions, they then incorporate that false information into their memory of the event and have an altered memory of the

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