Tracy Hill
Psychology 1010
Memory
Chapter 8
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory
is persistence if learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information. (Myers, D.G. (2011).
Exploring Psychology (8th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers, Page 275) We all reassure ourselves that
our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember
anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact
that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a
camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.
There was this one time, when I was in a car accident with a runner. It was very scary. I was
driving towards the sun and women came running out of nowhere and ran in to the side on my car.
Luckily, she had no injuries, just a few bumps. As I was waiting with the women for the police to arrive
another women offered to move my car out of the road, so traffic could get by. I really do not
remember this happening, but I gave her the keys and she parked my car up the street. She came back
and gave me my keys back a little bit later. The police arrived and started asking me questions. I was in
such a panic I could not remember anything. I did not know where my car was. I could not tell them
what it looked like. I tried to explain where I was driving and when I looked at the road I could not even
remember what lane was the right lane to be driving in. Once I sat down and took a few minute to take
in everything that had happened, I could remember everything.
After everything was done and over, the police man and I were talking. A man walked up to us
and told the police man that he had been in the parking lot across the street and saw the whole thing.
He said that a girl on a bike had zoomed around the corner right in front of my car. After the man had
left I said I know I was having trouble remembering things, but I’m sure The women was not on a bike
and she came running strait in to the road. The police man said that thing like this happen all the time
with eyewitnesses. This is called memory construction. (Myers, D.G. (2011). Exploring Psychology (8th
ed.). New York: Worth Publishers, Page 282-283) Memory construction may explain how faulty
eyewitness identification could have helped convict 79 percent of 200 people later who were later
exonerated by DNA testing.
Children’s memories are easier to confuse as those of adults. For many years most adults
believed that children’s memories could not be trusted because children tend to confuse reality with
their fantasies. Children just as adults can be accurate in what they report and they also like adult can
distort, forget, fantasize, and be misled.
I have a ten year old daughter. The other day I was telling her a story about when she was little
and we had gone to the farmers market and she picked out a big bag of apples. That night I had tucked
her in bed and went to bed myself. The next morning I found her asleep on the couch with the bag of
apples all around her and each apple had a little bit taken out of it. She laughed at the story. Then, my
son who is eight years old told her that it was him. That he waited tell she was asleep and then put all
the apples around her so she would get in trouble. My daughter all of sudden remembered this
happening and talked about how she was pretending to be asleep the whole time while he did this.
Once my son gave her the idea that it was him, my daughter had the same memories. Only I never told
them that this happened when she was about four years old. So, her bother could have never done such
a thing. He was two years old at the time and was still sleeping in a crib in my room. Just like when
interviewers who ask children leading questions can plant false memories. (Myers, D.G. (2011).
Exploring Psychology (8th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers, Page 284) My son was able to plant a false
memory of the apples.
Explicit memory is a conscious, recollection of an event or an item of information. It is usually measured
using recall or recognition methods. Recall can be described as a measure of memory in which the
person must retrieve information learned earlier, as a fill-in-the-blank test. (Myers, D.G. (2011).
Exploring Psychology (8th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers, Page 272) Recalling has the ability to
retrieve and reproduce information. Recognition can de described as a measure of memory in which the
person need only identify items previously learned as on a multiple-choice test. (Myers, D.G. (2011).
Exploring Psychology (8th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers, Page 272) Recognizing has the ability to
identify information you have previously learned, read, or heard about. Recognitions tests can be tricky,
especially when false items can resemble correct ones. Most of the time recognitions are easier than
recall.
Reflection
It is easy to take your memory for granted until it is gone. I choose to do my paper on memory
because I have experience how hard life can be when you cannot recall things that you know you know.
About a year ago I started having problems with my own memory. First, it was little things like forgetting
about my kids dental appointments or forgetting where I parked my car when I came out of the grocery
store. I didn’t pay much attention because this sort of stuff can happen to anyone. As time when on I
started forgetting more and more things. I found I had to write myself notes for everything. I could be in
the middle of a thought and get distracted by something like the phone ringing and would lose complete
train of thought. I when to see a doctor about this along with some other problem I had been having
and she told me it was just stress. I am a single mother of three children and have a very busy life. She
told me to try to get more rest and shrugged me off. School was becoming very difficult for me. I could
read the information and understand what I was learning. But, by the next day I had to read over
everything like it was my first time. I ended out seeing another doctor who discovered I had a major
thyroid problem and this was affecting my memory. Now, after being put on medication my memory is
starting to improve. I still find myself forgetting. I have to work harder in school to do well on test. So, I
have learned to be grateful for all my memories.
Bibliography
Myers, D. G. (2011). Exploring Psychology. New York: Worth Publishers.