False Memories EPQ

   Having naturally come to the next stage of my EPQ project, planning my dissertation, I have ironically gained a real feeling of rosy retrospective for the early stages of my project. I had such vague ideas and have explored every branch of my sprawling path of learning about false memories within psychology.     One major personal development that has come out of doing the EPQ is my decision to study neuroscience along with psychology at university. The studies into false memories that I have researched focus mainly on cognitive and neuropsychological aspects of the subject. Reading research which harnesses aspects of neuroscience in a physical way with brain scans as well as by incorporating brain theories has opened my eyes to my preference towards this more biological and cognitive approach to psychology.     Alongside writing my dissertation, I plan to read two novels to get some wider reading and knowledge into psychology and neuroscience:...

The Consequences of False Memories https://www.verywellmind.com/the-consequences-of-false-memories-2795350    I have recently read an article, by Kendra Cherry, on a website that I had previously visited and analysed for a sense of reliability. The site, verywellmind.com, is not only reliable (I have explained why in my source evaluation document) but also incredibly useful for incite into general health and psychological queries.        It changed the way I thought about false memories in a way as I‘d not really taken into account how their harm on an individual scale can be just as impactful as their societal implications (such as in the judicial system).    This article with the above title discussed some of the repercussions an individual may face if they have experienced false memories. These examples can be scaled up and down depending on how extreme the false memories are. Here is one interesting take from the information tha...

July: Complete final pieces of main research with a focus on the repercussions of false memories on society and people’s lives. Ensure my source evaluation is up to date. Look over PPR to finish and update it. End of month review of project. August: Research how to structure a dissertation. Plan the structure of each section of my dissertation. Write abstract and introduction paragraph. End of month review of project. September: Write a first draft of the main body of my dissertation (don’t edit what is written too much). End of month review of project. October: Finish off the first draft where needed and edit fully into a second draft. Tie up any final bits of PPR or source evaluation and publish my source evaluations on my blog. End of month review of project. November: Final edit on my dissertation- ensure my mentor and peers have read it over and take constructive criticism for this last edit. Plan the presentation. End of month review of project. December...

   I am still a fair way off finalising my project but I have learnt throughout this process that one of the most important factors in feeling successful is thinking and planning ahead. If you can picture where your project will be in a month, two months, or a years time, you can start figuring how you can get the results you want within that time frame.    By thinking ahead in this way, I have gotten a heightened awareness of my inexperience in extended writing. I have never written even a draft for a lengthy dissertation. To prepare myself, I‘ve looked up tips on where people often go wrong, what definitely should be done, and how not to fall into easy mistakes.    Here are a couple of websites I used: https://www.oxbridgeessays.com/blog/advice-successfully-writing-a-dissertation/ https://academicpositions.com/career-advice/10-dissertation-writing-tips    From that, here are a few things I need to improve on in order to produce a dissert...

   Two hugely impactful research points within psychology often clash: false memories, and the recovery of real, repressed memories. Both are very real phenomena and one does not prove the other wrong. Though, oftentimes it is hard to distinguish whether a person has fabricated a false memory or recovered a repressed one. This means that the pure existence of one theory tarnishes the credibility of claiming the other.    Here is the collection of research I have put together on the case of George Franklin, an accused rapist and murderer by his own daughter, which includes both the defending and accusing sides of his case as well as the opposing arguments of his daughter‘s repressed memories or arguably false memories.    Whether or not Eileen Franklin-Lipsker‘s hypnotherapy induced false memories, speculating the theory does help further research into the topic. The George Franklin case came prior to Elizabeth Loftus carrying out furth...

   This month I took a break from my EPQ project (half intentionally and half unintentionally). I cannot say that I am happy that I did so as I am disappointed that I broke the structure of time management and planning that was working so well for me.     I ran into a few minor problems this month that really affected my productivity and made it difficult to use my time effectively across my range of subjects including this project. This  all sounds like a feeble excuse, which in fairness does hold some truth, but tackling my procrastination has to be done if I want to progress and not let this month off affect my progress.     Firstly, due to Covid-19, we are no longer attending school which, at first, I coped with very well, especially since I temporarily had more time due to not working my part-Time job. However, going back to work with increased hours as well as my mounting at-home school work made me quite stressed which subseq...