Mnemic processes, that is, memory, have been the focus of research by a large number of scientists. Among them, one name stands out: Elizabeth Loftus, a prominent psychologist who has dedicated an important part of her life to the study and understanding of memory, becoming a reference in the field.
“Memory works like a Wikipedia page: you can go in there and change it, but so can other people.”Elizabeth Loftus.
Personal life
Born in Los Angeles, California on October 16, 1944, Elizabeth Loftus was born to the marriage of Rebecca and Sidney Fishman. At a young age she experienced a traumatic event that would spark her interest in trying to understand how memory works.
When he was only 14 years old, his mother drowned. An event that would mark her life, not only because of her unexpected loss, but because it was the necessary impulse to ask herself questions that led her to investigate how the memory process works and how reliable her memories can be.
Her memories about her mother’s death were very few, she seemed to have repressed it, until at a family party someone told her that she had been the first to see her mother’s corpse and that is when memories began to come to her mind. .
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“In real life, as well as in experiments, people can come to believe things that never happened.”Elizabeth Loftus.
However, this was denied by another relative, her aunt, who was the first to see her. Then Elizabeth Loftus felt very upset when she realized that the story she thought she remembered as real was not true and she questioned whether people really remembered what they had experienced.
Studies
In 1966, Loftus earned a degree in psychology and mathematics from the University of Los Angeles, continuing his doctoral studies at Stanford University. In the 80s he began his work with memory, studying cases of minor victims of abuse.
He focused on studying memories of traumatic situations and how they emerge into the conscious after being repressed. An interesting study of long-term memory.
Elizabeth Loftus has created an important foundation for the study of (Sampedro-Galera 2017), which has expanded the panorama about the reliability of people’s memories about certain events that still have great relevance today.
Research
Loftus’ research has served as a basis for studying mnemic implications in many cases, not only in relation to the legal field, but also in processes related to the response to trauma and its incidence in mental disorders such as dissociation and ( ).
It must be taken into account that at the time of his studies, cognitive psychology was just beginning to understand the functioning of the brain, memory being one of the great enigmas.
But this did not stop Elizabeth Loftus. With great determination, she set out to understand mnemic processes, explaining that memory is not infallible, that memories can be distorted and that it is even possible to introduce false memories and for the person to claim to have lived them.
Studies on the memory of witnesses are not something new, since before Loftus, researchers such as Catell (1895) carried out experiments in order to demonstrate that not all witnesses are reliable in their statements. This is because memory is not infallible.
But, thanks to her work, she has become a reference in the field of memory and an expert in the area, serving as an expert in forensic investigations.
His main focus has been the understanding of the long-term memory storage process, understanding the semantics of the organization of memories, mainly those that have been repressed by traumatic experiences.
The memory
For Elizabeth Loftus, memory is a quite complex mental process, which requires a much deeper understanding and study than some may think.
Being a topic of interest to her, Loftus began to empirically study long-term memory storage processes, taking several legal cases as a source. He analyzed the testimonies based on the misleading information that could be presented.
Memory can be distorted
Their studies showed that memory can be distorted when trying to remember traumatic events, leading to the integration of false memories that the person may believe to be real. This phenomenon occurs especially in cases in which sexual abuse has occurred.
According to Elizabeth Loftus, the judicial system should take the same level of interest in preserving memory evidence as physical evidence. For her, witnesses are not 100% reliable, even those of the victims.
Memories can be influenced by leading questions, affecting the reliability of what is said, regardless of whether the person is being as honest as possible or not. With this he has made it very clear that memory does not work like a computer, but rather it is a complex system.
Preserving memories intact seems to be impossible, since there are many factors that can influence the way in which experiences are remembered. One of the most striking is the brain’s quality of filling in empty spaces.
Unconsciously, the brain seeks to create false memories to fill in the spaces that it does not remember or that did not have complete information. This, without a doubt, can completely change the memory of an event.
“Just because someone thinks they remember something in detail, with confidence, and with emotion, doesn’t mean that it actually happened.”Elizabeth Loftus.
Experiments
To try to understand memory, Elizabeth Loftus carried out several experiments. Among those that stand out:
The car experiment. Together with JC Palmer, in 1974, Loftus presented a video of two cars colliding to a group of 45 volunteers and then asked them what they had seen.
In each case they used a different formulation of the question that invited them to remember what they had just seen. When studying the responses, they noticed that the words used in the statement influenced the type of response of the participants.
The shopping center experiment
In 1995, together with Pickrell, he conducted an experiment in which four memories were presented to the participants. 3 of them were real (told by their relatives) and one was a false memory of getting lost in a shopping center.
After a couple of days they were asked again about those events and 1 in 4 said they remembered details of when they got lost in the shopping center (something that never happened to them).
Contributions to psychology
Loftus’s main contribution to psychology has been the understanding of memory, understanding its malleability. This has set a precedent for many researchers of cognitive processes.
His studies have had an impact on the legal processes of witnesses. And thanks to her work she has been considered one of the best psychologists in the world.
“To be cautious, one should not have great confidence as an absolute guarantee of anything.”Elizabeth Loftus.
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