Serena Yang Distinguished Lecture: Illusions of Memory

Professor Elizabeth Loftus

ABSTRACT

For at least a century, scientists have demonstrated the tricks memory can play.   More recently they have shown that people can be led to develop entire memories for events that never happened.  In recent research, people have been led to remember nonexistent events from the recent past as well as non-existent events from their childhood.  People can be led to falsely believe that they have had familiar experiences, but also rather bizarre or implausible ones. They can be led to believe that they did things that would have been impossible (e.g., shaking hands with Bugs Bunny during a trip to Disneyland). They can be led to falsely believe that they had experiences that would have been rather traumatic had they actually happened.   False memories, like true ones, also have consequences for people, affecting later thoughts, intentions, and behaviors.   For example, people who are led to believe that as children they got sick eating particular foods show avoidance of those foods later on.  If false memories can be so readily planted in the mind, what does it say about the nature of memory?