The concept from Psychology that I will probably remember the most in five years is how the mind perceives certain things. Optical illusions have always been an interest to me, and after this class now I know why our minds perceive things in certain ways. Not only optical illusions, but how people can hear, see, and remember things differently. For example, in discussion, when we had to recall the words and basically had a 'false memory' implanted. After learning about this and experiencing it firsthand, I think it will be interesting in the future to see how people respond in certain situations.
I have been in several instances where one of my friends has told a story of something that happened to us earlier. Sometimes they would change one or two details around, and originally I had thought they were just exaggerating. Now I know it probably has more to do with that they had perceived the event and remembered it differently than I had.
In 5 years..
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I too find the false memories concept extremely interesting, and have mentioned it to one of my friends. This friend in particular has a habit of inserting herself into memories that everyone agrees she was not a part of. Not quite the same as you noticing friends telling stories slightly different, which I'm sure my friends and I do as well, but similar.
Optical illusions are so cool!
And it is a good thing to keep in mind, that people perceive things differently. It is interesting when friends have a slightly different version of the story than you do and learning about memory is very helpful when considering why this is.
How will this knowledge about differences in perception affect your life?
I liked the optical illusions too! It was amazing that I cannot trust everything that I 'see'. I thought that saying "I believe things that I really see" is wrong considering how deceptible our visual system and brain are. Maybe to escape from the influence of illusioned memory, recording everything that happens right now will be the best way - totally impossible!
I can say that this has happened to me and my friends on more that one occasion too. I always thought it was just heir exaggerations that led them to made "edits" to the story but I can see now that in some cases it probably wasn't intentional.
I too have had friends change a small part of a story we were both a part of. I often wonder whether they were doing it to exaggerate it and make it a little bit better or if they truly did not remember it in its entirety. I think that some of the times it is because they do not truly remember it but I also think many times it is exaggerated on purpose so that it seems better. Optical illusions intrigue me too but tricks that can be played on the brain are numerous and not limited to our sense of sight.