Friday, April 25, 2008

The Correlation between Memory and Imagination

Memory is a fickle thing to begin with, and to add another manipulative factor can cause us to believe things that may not be true. Loftus talks about how manipulative an active imagination can be in deciding whether we believe a certain event occurred. In experiments they conducted, they noticed that people who had an active imagination may remember events that didn't occur. They also were more inclined to believe things incorrectly. She ends with the conclusion that one can avoid making these mistakes by educating themselves.

However, while this may be true, i think that just plain education will not remedy this error. People will always remember things that they didn't actually witness. Different individuals place different importance on certain things. Whatever we consider important, its amplified, while other details fade.

2 comments:

Amanda said...

I agree with you totally, children especially seem to remember things that they made up. Maybe in the sense of having an imaginary friend and thinking later in life, that it was a real friend from elementary school or something to that effect would apply here.

DaniOh said...

I think it is a part of human nature not to remember things as they actually were. I mean if I remember everything that happened since I had memory actually as it was... I would go mad. I mean, every sad memory and every shocking memory would still vivid.