PSY 205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Psy, Elizabeth Loftus, Yield Sign

• School: Syracuse University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 205
• Professor: S.Houck

Document Summary

What is memory: a group of related mental processes that enable us to acquire, retain, & retrieve info for a variety of uses. The nature of memory is reconstructed: elizabeth loftus. Our memory is reconstructive (mother drowned, she thought she discovered her mothers body false memory: false memories a memory of something that didn"t happen. Loftus"s research: misinformation effect falsely reconstructing memories based off of faulty info. Had participants come into lab and watch video of crime happening with a screwdriver, then they read about the crime, happening with a hammer. Why hearing about the hammer later on contaminates the previous memory. The person falsely reconstructs the memory: because we are constantly creating a memory. Researchers are trying to get participants to remember something that didn"t happen: with the nature of our memory, we can easily be lead somewhere else. Misinformation from the leading question led to inaccurate.