Elizabeth Loftus: biography of this American psychologist

Many believe that the brain is like a computer and as such we store many memories completely and intact. When we try to remember we think that what we are remembering is indisputably true, that it is such and how we experience the remembered event.

However, this is not so. Memories can be distorted over time, and more so if we talk about those that are associated with traumatic experiences. Taking this into account, the following question is inevitable: can our mind create false memories?

The American psychologist and mathematician Elizabeth Loftus has dedicated her entire life to answering this question, motivated by the experience of a traumatic event in her youth and know how reliable the testimonies of the victims, accused and testimonies of crimes. Next we will delve into her life and her research through a biography of Elizabeth Loftus.

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Short Biography of Elizabeth Loftus

Elizabeth Loftus, born Elizabeth Fishman, was born on October 16, 1944 in Los Angeles

, California. Her parents were Sidney and Rebecca Fishman. At just 14 years old, young Elizabeth experienced the death of her mother due to a drowning accident.

Rebecca Fishman's death shocked her entire family and at the same time sparked young Elizabeth's interest in her memory. After the death of her mother, Elizabeth she didn't remember much of the accident... Had she suppressed it herself?

However, during the celebration of the 44th birthday of one of her uncles, a relative told Elizabeth that she had been the first to see the lifeless body of her mother. Based on this, Elizabeth Loftus began to "remember" little things and became convinced that they were true. But to her surprise, it was later confirmed that she was not the first to the corpse, but one of her aunts did.

Knowing this Loftus she was surprised how she had convinced herself of a story that, although in appearance real, was nothing more than a conspiracy. Due to this Elizabeth Loftus became interested in how human beings, based on very little information and suggestions, are capable of creating false memories, memories not true but so vivid that it is unquestionable that they are more than a invention.

In 1966 she earned a BA with honors in Mathematics and Psychology from the University of Los Angeles. She later she would enter Stanford University, where she would obtain a doctorate. In the 1980s she began to take a deeper look at memory. In those years she began to study various cases of child abuse and how long-term memory worked. She was very interested in knowing how repressed memories related to the traumatic situation experienced by the victims emerged.

She did several investigations and based on her findings Loftus very critically questioned the ability of the human being to recover memories and information truthfully, especially when these memories have been repressed by some defensive mechanism of our mind. The main focus of her research throughout her entire career has been to understand how information is organized semantically and results in long-term memory.

Based on these findings, Elizabeth Loftus considered that her work should have some social relevance, so she began to empirically study witness testimony in trials based on the misleading information paradigm. She thus began to conduct many investigations on memory and the relationship that it has with the degree of reliability that the testimony of a witness can have in a trial.

Loftus' research has presented numerous evidences that the experiences lived by a person can be upset when trying to remember, and appear real and reliable despite being a memory slanted. This is especially common in childhood sexual abuse memories when they are retrieved both in the course of forensic investigation and during psychotherapy.

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Visions of Loftus brings memory closer

It is important to understand that when Elizabeth Loftus began her career in cognitive psychology research, that between other things she studies memory, she was beginning to reveal new aspects of how the brain works and the processes mental. Memory has been one of the most interesting topics in this branch of psychology, being the basis of learning and even being a fundamental aspect to give people identity.

But besides this, the study of memory is of key importance in the judicial field: It must be determined to what extent the memory of a witness is reliable. Loftus focused on studying the possibility not only that the memories of these people could be totally changed, but also that other people could introduce false memories into they. This is why Elizabeth Loftus has been consulted as a testimony expert and her works have been used in the field of forensic investigation.

According to Loftus herself, the legal system is very concerned and takes precautions to avoid contaminating the physical evidence present at the crime scene, such as hair, blood, semen, torn clothing... However, the same precautions are not taken when it comes to preventing the memories of the witnesses from being contaminated. Thus, during interrogations, the memory of witnesses can be conditioned by asking them suggestive questions, which can have an immense effect on their testimony.

Elizabeth Loftus' career has been very controversial because her research goes on to say that the testimony of victims, witnesses and even the accused himself is not entirely valid. However sincere they may be in the course of an investigation, there is no way to be sure that the memories of her are genuine. They may have been manipulated by lawyers, investigators, and even the judge himself may have accidentally swayed by asking a suggestive question.

But despite the controversies Loftus is one of the most valued figures in psychology. She has published more than 20 books and nearly 500 scientific articles on false memory. In addition, she has been awarded several recognitions, such as the “Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement” awarded by the APA. In 2002 she was recognized as one of the most influential psychologists on the General Psychology 100 List. most influential researchers of the 20th century, ranking 58th and the highest ranked woman in the ready.

Research on memories

The idea of ​​memory in popular culture, and even in some professional circles, is that the brain works like a computer. Based on this belief, memories remain stored and isolated from other processes and phenomena mental, becoming aware when the time comes when we need to remember that experience or knowledge. We think of memory as simply storing and retrieving files.

However, this is not quite so. While many memories are intact, sometimes they are inaccurate: they are remembered in a blurry, distorted, and hollow way. To fill in these gaps, we collude, unconsciously add false information, or allow ourselves to be swayed by other people who tell us how the events were, changing our memory and thinking that this new version is the reliable.

This fact had not been empirically proven until Elizabeth Loftus investigated it thoroughly. Through his experiments he showed that memories are not something that is stored intact and that they can be mixed with others to the point of completely changing, thus creating false regards.

The Car Experiment (Loftus and Palmer, 1974)

One of the most famous memory experiments was carried out by Elizabeth Loftus and J. C. Palmer with 45 volunteers who They were presented with a recording showing two cars colliding with each other. After presenting this recording, the researchers discovered something really curious.

After viewing the recording, the volunteers were asked to recall what they had seen. For this they used a very specific phrase to tell them that they had to evoke what they had seen:

“About how fast were the cars going when they... each other? "

"How fast were the cars going when... with each other?"

This was the part where some volunteers and others received subtly different instructions. For some volunteers, the phrase that was used contained the word “contacted”, while others were he used the same phrase only he changed that word to "hit", "collided" or "smashed" (crushed). The volunteers were asked to give their opinion about the speed at which the two vehicles they had seen were going..

As we said, all, absolutely all the volunteers saw the same thing. However, Elizabeth Loftus noticed something truly surprising, since when they were asked to remember what appeared in the video the phrase used altered the memories of her. Those people who had been instructed with the words “contacted” and “hit” said that the vehicles were going at a lower speed compared to those with which a phrase containing the words "collided" or "Smashed".

That is, the degree of shock intensity suggested by the words used by the research team influenced the perception of speed. The memory of the scene they had seen changed in the minds of the participants. With this experiment, Loftus and Palmer provided evidence about how information given in the present can alter memories of past events.

The Mall Experiment (Loftus and Pickrell, 1995)

Another very famous Loftus experiment is that of the shopping center, an experiment that showed that it was possible to introduce false memories through something as simple and unobtrusive as suggestion. This research had a higher degree of complication, since to carry it out it was necessary to have personal information on the lives of the volunteers. For this, Loftus had the help of friends and relatives of the participants.

During the first phase of the investigation, the volunteers were told, one by one, four anecdotes about their childhood. Three of these memories were real, data counted by the people close to the volunteers; however, the fourth memory was totally false. Specifically, it was the story of how participants got lost in a shopping mall when they were little, totally fictitious story.

The next phase happened a few days later. The volunteers were interviewed again and asked if they remembered anything about the four stories that had been explained to them in the first part of the investigation. One in four people said they remembered something about what happened when they got lost in the mall, a memory that, as we have discussed, was totally fictitious.

But it is also that, when one of the four stories they were told was revealed to be false, they were asked to guess which one was the fictitious one. Many were right and knew how to see that it was the one in the shopping center, but 5 of the 24 participants failed to give the correct answer. Actually those 5 people believed that they had gotten lost in the mall as children, having a very vivid and real memory.

This research showed that with very little effort, Loftus and other researchers were able to introduce a false memory into the memory of the participants.

Implications of these investigations

These experiments succeeded in showing that, contrary to what ordinary people believe, memories are not stored intact. They can be easily altered on purpose, either by using specific questions, false information, or through the suggestion of someone trusted by the person. They can also be altered by experiences after the event to be remembered or even by our emotions. It is truly eye-opening and creepy that it is possible to put totally fake scenes into someone's mind and create them as if they were absolutely real.

Bibliographic references:

• Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of auto-mobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal behavior, 13, 585-589.
• Yuille, J. C., & Cutshall, J. L. (1986). A case study of eyewitness memory of a crime. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71 (2), 291.
• Loftus, E.F.; Pickrell JE (1995). "The formation of false memories" (PDF). Psychiatric Annals. 25 (12): 720–725. doi: 10.3928 / 0048-5713-19951201-07. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-12-03. Retrieved 2009-01-21.