Fantasy... an entire universe

My Bones bingo

( Here... )

Might get to be a weekly thing, this.

( Spoilers for Bones 4x05 - The Perfect Pieces in the Purple Pond )

After studying forensic medicine last semester, I've been taking a course in forensic psychology this semester (as well as my usual law courses), and it's been highly interesting. How do we remember? How does amnesia work?

( Spoilers for House season finale )

There's lots of fascinating studies on how people remember, from the 7+/-2 rule about short term memory, to what kind of details we remember and how we "fill in" information about things that we haven't seen. (For example, when a ship called Estonia sank, there were no pictures taken from the sinking, but several stories from the survivors. Despite the fact that no picture had been taken, a surprising amount of people in the study said they had seen pictures; they had filled in the information and created mental pictures of the sinking).

House isn't the only show saying things that aren't true as far as psychology goes... In a recent episode of Bones, Brennan says there is evidence for certain signs that tell you another person is lying. This isn't true: the studies are often inconclusive, and contradict each other. People in general suck at telling when other people are lying to them (few studies give results that are far above the chance level of 50%), and professionals such as policemen and judges are equally bad at telling who lies and who doesn't.

Rant over. :)

ETA: Oh, and in your comments, please don't post anything about the latest episodes of NCIS. I don't want to be more spoiled than I already am...

ETA2: Another interesting thing to note from Polite Dissent:

( House spoiler )