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When Memories Lie - Online Essays

When Memories Lie

Determining whether memories are true or false is a legal debate that occurs in courtrooms every day and the outcome has a direct effect on people and their futures. What is beyond debate, however, is how easily false memories can be formed. Memory is not a reliable source of evidence especially in the courtroom. False memories can be formed because of the reconstructive nature of memory. Some memories may be distorted through influences from other people or from the integration of new information. There are also people who conjure up memories that are not based in reality but in the imagination, usually in people that are mentally unstable, they literally believe their own lies ...

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and sometimes we 'remember' entire events that never occurred. Knowledge of memory's quirks can help us reduce errors, wrongful persecutions, and some experiments show that it can be helpful by eventually changing dietary habits.
We live in a precarious time that resembles the hysteria and superstition that surrounded the witch trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Men and women are being accused, tried, and convicted with no real proof or factual evidence of guilt other than the memory and the word of the accuser. Even when the accusations include numerous culprits, affecting their lives over many years, even decades, the accuser pointing the finger of blame is enough to make believers of judges and turn whole juries. Individuals are being convicted and imprisoned on the “evidence” provided by memories that come back in dreams and flashbacks. Memories that often times did not even exist in the first place but were implanted when that person went into ...

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When Memories Lie. (2011, April 25). Retrieved January 6, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/When-Memories-Lie/98414

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"When Memories Lie." Essayworld.com. April 25, 2011. Accessed January 6, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/When-Memories-Lie/98414.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 4/25/2011 01:05:30 PM
Submitted By: falcon9
Category: Psychology
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 713
Pages: 3

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