Transcript

GRAHAM PIKE

Hello and welcome to the third week of this course. So far, we've looked at how unreliable our memories can be, and how suggestible they are.

The two eyewitnesses to the armed robbery remembered quite different things. Either because they'd forgotten details of what happened or simply did not notice everything that was going on.

CATRIONA HARVARD

One way that psychologists have researched the mind is through examining cognitive processes of perception, attention and memory. This week we'll see that just because our eyes perceive something, does not mean that we necessarily notice it.

Our memories don't work like a computer. Instead we construct stories of the events we have seen in the past, and we'll see that in doing this we can be open to suggestion from others and can even sometimes think we remember seeing things that we did not see.

GRAHAM PIKE

You'll also get to test your own powers of observation. And see how witnesses are affected by stress and the presence of a weapon.

Good luck, see you next week.