Module 3 Discussion-Let there be light! Another experiment for your hapless part

Question

Module 3 Discussion-Let there be light! Another experiment for your hapless participants: Read the following list of words to them and ask them to listen carefully without writing anything down until you finish. Then, after you finish reading, ask them to write down as many as they can. Read them slowly, about one second for each word: Bulb, Feather, Glare, Bright, Calorie, Night, Shade, Weight, Heavy, Diet, Switch, Thin, Day, Cotton, Fluorescent. Wait a minute or two, and ask them if they wrote down the following words: Bulb? Fluorescent? Weight? Then ask if they wrote down "Light." Many probably did. But light was not one of the words. 1. What happened? Which words did they remember best and why? 2. Consider the results of this experiment as well as the text discussion of eyewitness testimony. Memory is clearly constructed but feels absolutely real, sometimes so real it's as if we are reliving it. There seems to be no difference between an authentic memory and a false one because both are constructed. Use this insight to critically discuss the controversy surrounding recovered memories of abuse.

Explanation / Answer

1. The words that are recalled in a succession are done so by many participants because of the simple reason that they have correlation with each other, and are the probably aspects of a similar facet.. It is one of the aspects of the gestalt theory. And this is the principle of similarity within Gestalt theory. It states that all the things that have similar characteristics are grouped as one, hence Bulb, Fluorescent and weight is written, and as they are facets of a thing called light, light is inadvertently mentioned as well. This is also due to the semantic relation between the words.

2. False memory is common psychological phenomena wherein a person seems to recall something that did not happen. Semantic correlation between words and conjuring up new words as a result is a common mishap that presents itself in the minds of many individual during word list tests.

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