Memory
1. The Concept of Memory At the end of an intricate treatment of remembering in chapter 9 of The Analysis of Mind, Bertrand Russell laments that “this analysis of memory is probably extremely faulty, but I do not know how to improve it” (1921, p. 187). The answer, in part, is that the term labels a great variety of phenomena. This point is worth reiterating. Philosophers often focus on the latter kind of case, sometimes denying that the merely implicit learned association in the former case is a genuine form of memory at all. C.B. 1.1 The Varieties of Remembering A rough consensus has emerged among philosophers and psychologists around one promising, more-or-less unified terminology for the forms of long-term memory. Philosophers' ‘habit memory’ is, roughly, psychologists' ‘procedural memory’. We sometimes use ‘remember’ in its declarative senses as a ‘success-word’, so that ‘false memories’ are not ‘memories’ at all. 1.2 Episodic Memory and Autobiographical Memory 2. 3.
Eyewitness Testimony and Memory: Human Memory is Unreliable and so is Eyewitness Testimony
Reports from eyewitnesses play an important role in the development and propagation of both religious and paranormal beliefs. People are often ready to believe the personal reports of what others say that they have seen and experienced. Thus, it is important to consider just how reliable people's memory and their testimony can be. Eyewitness Testimony & Criminal Trials Perhaps the most important thing to note is that, even though there is a popular perception of eyewitness testimony being among the most reliable forms of evidence available, the criminal justice system treats such testimony as being among the most fragile and even unreliable available. Consider the following quote from Levin and Cramer's Problems and Materials on Trial Advocacy: Eyewitness testimony is, at best, evidence of what the witness believes to have occurred. Prosecutors recognize that eyewitness testimony, even when given in all honesty and sincerity, isn't necessarily credible. Critiquing Eyewitness Testimony
Visual Expert Human Factors: Eyewitness Memory Is Unreliable
Eyewitness Memory is Unreliable Marc Green Seminar Available on this topic. Australian eyewitness expert Donald Thomson appeared on a live TV discussion about the unreliability of eyewitness memory. Causes of Memory Unreliability 1. There are several reasons for this. People are much better at discriminating between two objects when they are physically present than when one is present and the other is in memory. Color is a particular good example of memory's low resolution. Color memory also has some biases. Another problem is that memory often stores perceptual information in verbal form rather than as an image. Several authors have concluded that memory simply encodes the general gist of a scene. 2. Memory is a reconstruction, not a record. Further, people confuse information sources. In talking to my brother recently, I realized that I would have to have been one year old at the time. 3. Memory tends to distort perception in systematic ways. 4. "We do not see what we sense. References
Anecdotal evidence
The term is often used in contrast to scientific evidence, such as evidence-based medicine, which are types of formal accounts. Some anecdotal evidence does not qualify as scientific evidence because its nature prevents it from being investigated using the scientific method. Misuse of anecdotal evidence is an informal fallacy and is sometimes referred to as the "person who" fallacy ("I know a person who. The term is sometimes used in a legal context to describe certain kinds of testimony. Introduction[edit] In all forms of anecdotal evidence, its reliability by objective independent assessment may be in doubt. Anecdotal evidence, in the United Nations Dangerous Goods programme is called human experience. Scientific context[edit] In science, definitions of anecdotal evidence include: Anecdotal evidence can have varying degrees of formality. Faulty logic[edit] Anecdotal evidence is also frequently misinterpreted via the availability heuristic, which leads to an overestimation of prevalence.
Fata Morgana (mirage)
Fata Morgana as seen of coast of Manhattan Beach, CA on March 9, 2014 A Fata Morgana of a boat A Fata Morgana changing the shape of a distant boat A Fata Morgana is an unusual and complex form of superior mirage that is seen in a narrow band right above the horizon. It is an Italian phrase derived from the vulgar Latin for "fairy" and the Arthurian sorceress Morgan le Fay, from a belief that these mirages, often seen in the Strait of Messina, were fairy castles in the air or false land created by her witchcraft to lure sailors to their death. Although the term Fata Morgana is sometimes applied to other, more common kinds of mirages, the true Fata Morgana is not the same as an ordinary superior mirage, nor is it the same as an inferior mirage. Fata Morgana mirages distort the object or objects which they are based on significantly, often such that the object is completely unrecognizable. A Fata Morgana is often rapidly changing. Schematic diagram explaining the Fata Morgana mirage
