Elizabeth Loftus suggests that memory is affected by our own expectations or views of the world. In one of Loftus's studies, she divided participants into two groups after watching a video of a car accident. In one group she asked the participants to estimate the speed of the cars that "smashed" into each other. IN the other group she asked the participants to estimate the speed of the cars that "hit" each other. She found that the group that she used the verb smashed estimated a much higher speed than the other group. In another study Loftus offered participants twenty-five dollars if they could recall a certain event of a film they had watched. Despite the motivation the higher percentage could not recall the event that she asked about. Elizabeth Loftuss' research proposes that we are more likely to accept faulty information as being true. Also Loftus says that we store the false information in our memory as being true. This suggests that our memory is not always accurate because of the information we are given. The human mind can be manipulated to believe certain false events as true. According to Elizabeth Loftus, our memory is not always as accurate as we believe it to be.
Source:
Doyle-Portillo, S. & Pastorino, E. (2011). What is
Psychology?: 3E. Belmont: Wadsworth. pp. 247 and 248
Re:
This is a very nice and through summary of the information taken from your text book. How could you integrate the Eye Witness Testimony videos into your discussion?
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My major is criminal justice so the Eye witness Testimony videos apply to my profession as well as my reply. Elizebeth Loftus showed that memory can be flawed and in the videos this is reiterated. In my profession it is essential to be able to tell when a person is lying about witnessing something or not. Whether the events are actually blurry to a witness or not is up to the police officer to decide. This especially scary considering it can be a matter of imprisonment or freedom for a person.
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The Eye Witness Testimony had nothing to do with "lying." It had to do with how memory can be corrupted and therefore is unreliable. Please give specific examples from the video and share exactly what incidents "reiterated." What did Elizabeth Loftus in the video specifically state about eye witness testimony?