Chapter 7~ Memory

1. This chapter was very interesting because I got to test my memory, which I learned is not very good at all but that is old news to me. In the memory activities we did in class, I noticed that the one she made us count down from 21, I couldn't remember any words from that activity. I knew that once I had to count from 21 to 0, my mind would be taken off the words that I just tried to memorize. When I watched the eyewitness testimony I was shocked that she got her rapist wrong. You would think that because she studied him during her rape, she would know every detail about him and she would be able to pick him out in a crowd of millions. She did indeed pick him out twice; once in a picture line up and once in a live lineup. It turned out that her memory led them astray and she chose the wrong guy. He spent 11 years in prison because of it. I wasn't able to watch the eyewitness testimony part 2, the one that explained why she mixed them up, but I am guessing that her memory mixed up certain details about her rapist. This makes me wonder if my memory has ever done this to me and I didn't know it. The fact that our memory can mess up observations just scares me because if I was ever in the position of the woman in the eyewitness testimony, who knows if I could give the police the right information.