Serena Yang Distinguished Lecture: Illusions of Memory

Professor Elizabeth Loftus
　

BIOGRAPHY

Professor Loftus is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, which awarded her the inaugural Henry & Bryna David Lectureship in 2002 for application of the best social and behavioural sciences research to public policy issues. The American Psychological Society recognized her significant lifetime intellectual contributions to the basic science of psychology with the William James Fellow Award in 2001.  She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March 2005.  Her work suggests that memory is highly susceptible to distortion and manipulation, and that people can vividly recall events that never happened.  Her research on false memory, the reliability of eyewitness reports and memories recovered through therapy has affected how law enforcement, courts and psychologists consider such testimony.  She has been called as an expert witness in more than 200 trials, including that of the mass murderer Ted Bundy, the Oklahoma City bombing, and Michael Jackson.