Chapter 8 – Lost in the Mall
Summary
Slater discussed the work of Elizabeth Loftus and her work on memory recognition. Her main experiment involved implanting false memories of being lost in a mall into subject’s minds. They would take the false memory and in thinking it was theirs recollect many details about an event that never happened to them. Her further research led her to help wrongly convicted felons on death row. But in the end, she realized everything she didn’t have when she could no longer view memory as a reliable source of comfort.
Summary
Slater discussed the work of Elizabeth Loftus and her work on memory recognition. Her main experiment involved implanting false memories of being lost in a mall into subject’s minds. They would take the false memory and in thinking it was theirs recollect many details about an event that never happened to them. Her further research led her to help wrongly convicted felons on death row. But in the end, she realized everything she didn’t have when she could no longer view memory as a reliable source of comfort.
Discussion
Honestly, this seems like a very dangerous way to go about life in not believing memory to be reliable. It would shake your very existence just like it did for Loftus. While I believe memory can be very reliable, there is technically no way to prove it either way. Since we do have the uncanny ability to make up memories and fill in holes with things that never actually happened, how do we really know what is real and what is filler? I just choose to trust my instinct and stick with that. If I believe it to be reliable, then it is. That’s way better than the depressing alternative.
Honestly, this seems like a very dangerous way to go about life in not believing memory to be reliable. It would shake your very existence just like it did for Loftus. While I believe memory can be very reliable, there is technically no way to prove it either way. Since we do have the uncanny ability to make up memories and fill in holes with things that never actually happened, how do we really know what is real and what is filler? I just choose to trust my instinct and stick with that. If I believe it to be reliable, then it is. That’s way better than the depressing alternative.
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