Week of October 15-21 Discussion #3

I thought that the section about Direct Experience and False Memories was in important concept that was talked about in this chapter because I believe this is something that everyone does experience and actually do in their everyday lives. In this section it talked about how language has the ability to alter one’s memories and this is a problem particularly happens a lot during people’s testimonials. The power of words can actually change the shape of our reality by the way questions are given to us. There was a study on how a person answers differently by just the change of verbs in the question. There was an example in the book where people were given a video of a car accident and was asked about the speed of the cars. Despite the fact they all saw the same video; participants responded with higher speeds based on the verb in the question. This was a good explanation and example used for false memory and direct experience for this is what people actually experience and do on a regular basis.