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The Reliability Of Fallacies In Sense Perception And Memory

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Time and time again we are told how unreliable our senses and memory are. These ways of knowing function simultaneously so people may gain their own knowledge and store that information throughout their lives. Sense perception is defined as the way our bodies perceive and gain knowledge from an external stimuli. Memory is essential in retaining the knowledge gained through our senses. Despite this, studies by psychologists Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer suggest how easy it is to manipulate memories of an individual by simply proposing the idea that false events occurred. While the way people interpret their environment can easily be distorted, as shown with fallacies in sense perception and memory, these two ways of knowing are valuable, …show more content…
In other words, it is common to misinterpret or misidentify what we originally believe to be true. As DNA testing has become a prominent piece of technology used in criminal cases to accurately identify perpetrators, the reliability of eyewitness testimony has become increasingly less accredited than it was in the past. Prior to this new technological advance, victims in crimes were the most reliable sources of information, as the offenses happened to them. In Ronald Cotton’s case, a story studied by Loftus, he was misidentified as a rapist and was shortly sent to prison for over a decade. In a lineup of men, the victim singled out Ronald, convinced that he was perpetrator. However, now that it is widely accepted that recalled memories are simply reconstructed pieces of ones’ history, eyewitness testimony is assessed at a much lower level in the judicial system, even being recognized as faulty …show more content…
This is known as procedural memory: information that is retained through repetition and is done “unconsciously.” The simplest example is riding a bike. The movements, balance, and force needed to properly use a bike take time and effort to comprehend. However, once the coordination is mastered, unless a person’s senses are impaired or altered, the exercise is retained so that no matter how long one goes without biking, remembering how to repeat the task can be done with ease. Brain Games produced a video in which a professional BMX biker mastered riding a backwards bike, requiring a completely new approach to riding a bike, which reconstructed the procedural memory and challenged the biker’s sense perception. After solely using a backwards bike, the participant attempted using a regular bike, which he failed to ride. Because he had to alter his previous knowledge of riding a bike to fit his knew task, retrieving the original information was nearly impossible. This experience demonstrates a failure to conduct a standard activity once the movements and procedure engraved in our brains have been

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