The topic I found the most interesting from this course was the topic of memory. Specifically what interested me was the amount of information that can be processed in each type of memory and remembering memories. Short term memory and working memory both have a limited capacity, while long term memory is limitless. Thinking about the vastness of all the knowledge I have ever learned in my life is astonishing. The limited amount of working memory makes sense because there is no way we could possibly comprehend everything that is happening around us at once. We pick and choose what we focus on. This specified focus often leads to unintentional blindness and deafness.
It is also interesting to me that some memories we still hold in our brains exist, but we can’t always retrieve them, at least not without retrieval cues. Each time a memory is pulled out of long term memory and brought into working memory, it is subject to alterations, and change. This pertains to my life because after going through events with friends and family, they sometimes have a different story about what
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Without realizing it, other factors are influencing our memories each time it is brought up. Similar to learning about hypnosis to try and retrieve repressed memories, a hypnotist can accidentally bias a person to thinking something happened when it really didn’t just by the way a question is asked. When retrieving memories over time, many times, different factors can influence our perception of the event. This interests me because we can never be 100% positive of our memories, or what has occurred in our lives. We are incredibly vulnerable to manipulation whether it be purposeful or not. I believe this is the most important subtopic about memory that many people should know. Every year many people are convicted of crimes they didn't commit due to inaccurate identifications by victims or