Psychology 101
Throughout the film "Inception," writer Christopher Nolan reminds his audience that what we are
seeing is not the reality we see, since concepts may be implanted in people's minds and incorporated into their
memories. A quick synopsis of the 2010 movie "Inception:" Dom Cobb is a man who has the ability to enter people's dreams and extract secrets from their mind. This skill has earned him a reputation in the world of stealing information. He became so skilled that his wife began to distrust reality and unwittingly committed
suicide in real life. Cobb is given a second chance at atonement, but he must first instill an idea in the mind of
another person. If he succeeds, he will have committed the ideal crime, but a once-great comrade has turned
against him. Inception mostly focuses on the concept of memory and how the mind works inside individuals.
The storyline describes memory as plausible.
The definition of memory is the retention of "knowledge across time through the encoding, storing. and retrieval of information." [Lecture Notes] In the movie, Mal, Cobb's wife, enters Cobb's dreams due to his
memory. Her constant intervention causes conflict. Another type of memory is implicit memory "Automatic
or unconscious process that enhances the speed or accuracy of a response as a result of past experience."
[Lecture Notes] As an example, before his exposure, Fischer recalls admiring his godfather, which ultimately
prevented both individuals from succeeding in their relationships. Adding on to what memory is - encoding -
"the way information is encoded critically influences later retrieval." [Lecture Notes] As the group delves
further into Fischer's mind, they implant a new opinion of his godfather and generate new memories that alter
his idea of what he would do with his inheritance. One of the encoding settings mentioned in this portion of the
movie is the level of processing. Storage - "Mental thesaurus." [Lecture Notes] In the movie, as the crew dig
deeper, the crew see into Fischer's mind that includes the last memory Fischer had of his father who passed
away, this is an example of what memory storage is.
Retrieval - "The way information is encoded critically influences later retrieval." [Lecture Notes] In the
movie, Fischer was required to remember a safe combination while stuck in the warehouse, and because he
was unable to recover it properly, he was forced to make one up. Episodic Memory - "personally relevant past
experiences and events." [Lecture Notes] In the movie, Cobb regularly recalls his wife Mal's death, since it
plays a vital role in the growth of his character. This is an episodic memory, remembering things from a certain
time.
Elizabeth Loftus has demonstrated that these forms of "false memories" regularly confuse individuals.
Loftus began researching false memories in her laboratory by implanting specific traumatic experiences such
as being lost in a shopping mall as a child into the minds of research participants. In her experiment, she showed how our memories can be distorted by the things