Topical Blog Due 2/17 10pm

Elizabeth Loftus is currently a psychology professor at the University of Washington. She earned her Ph.D in 1970 at Stanford and has contributed much research and theory about memory, specifically the malleability and reliability of repressed memories. Loftus questions the accuracy of repressed memories that suddenly resurface. Loftus uses the term “memory work” to describe the process of remembering repressed memories through things like dream work, hypnosis, visualization, group therapy, and suggestion by a therapist. Loftus believes that some of these retrieved “memories” are not real and that the events remembered may have actually never happened. She theorizes that these memories are falsely constructed or created through these “memory work” processes and they are truly believed by the victim. Harsh criticisms have been made about Loftus’ theory, saying that “there is no controlled scientific experiment to prove that repressed memories actually exist”. I think this is a valid point. I mean, it is scary to think that we could truly believe something so horrific happened to us, when in reality it was just false memories that we believed to be reality. It would not be ethical to do a scientific experiment on repressed memories such as these; however, because you cannot ethically implant false memories of such a terrible extent into people’s minds. http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/loftus.htm
Something VERY interesting that I read about Elizabeth was that her mother drowned in a pool when she was 14 years old. Thirty years after this her uncle told her that she was the first to find her mother. After this, memories and pictures began to come back to her vividly. However, later her uncle told her that he had made a mistake and that her aunt was really the person who first found her mother. This supports her theory that memories are fragile and can be influenced by many factors. Loftus did a “lost in the shopping mall study” which questioned teenagers about when they were lost in the mall as a child. Even though this never happened to them, they had “memories” of the event. Her research shows that false events, like the lost in the mall event, can become a reality in the person’s mind. Her research also says that memories cannot date back to before age 3. She says that any memory before age three is probably just filling in the blanks of what most likely happened. In this article it discusses the case of George Franklin who was accused by his daughter of killing her best friend, 20 years after the murder occurred. Eileen, the daughter, had vivid memories of her dad killing her friend but not until 20 years later. However, her testimony didn’t match up exactly with the facts and details of the crime, so Loftus testified at the trial and provided her research findings and explained how Eileen had mistaken memory.
One disturbing thing I read about while researching Loftus was a story about Nadean Cool, who was seeking therapy to help her cope with a traumatic event that her daughter had experienced. During therapy she underwent hypnosis and other suggestive techniques to reveal buried memories of her own alleged personal abuse as a child. Her repressed memories included being in a satanic cult, eating babies, being raped, having sex with animals, and being forced to watch the murder of her 8 year old friend! When I read this I could not believe how insane and terrible these “memories” were. How could any psychiatrist think that uncovering these things would HELP the patient? Did her doctor really believe that these were true memories? Cool received a settlement of 2.4 million dollars for the malpractice of her therapist. Another experiment done by Loftus deals with the “misinformation effect” which occurs when people who witness an event are later exposed to new and misleading information, their later recollection of the event is distorted. The study involved participants viewing a simulated car accident at an intersection with a stop sign. After viewing it ½ the participants received the suggestion that the sign was a yield sign. When they were asked later what sign they remember seeing, the ones who received the suggestion of the yield sign reported seeing a yield sign. The ones who didn’t get the suggestion were much more accurate in recalling that it was a stop sign. http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm This article, written by Loftus, discusses the “imagination inflation” which is when participants are asked to imagine a childhood event that never happened, their confidence that the event actually occurred increases. Imagination makes events seem more familiar which mistakenly leads them to believe they are memories. Loftus also talks about how innocent people confess to things they didn’t do. An experiment was done on this and results found that the innocent person initially denied the charge, but when someone said that they saw them do it, many participants “signed a confession, internalized guilt for the act, and went on to confabulate details that were consistent with the belief”. This is important for the law because many people do confess to crimes they didn’t commit, and by understanding this concept we can possibly avoid false confessions.
There can be controversy with Loftus’ theory because it could imply that all memories that arise after suggestion are false. However, this is not what she is saying. Experimental work in this area does give doubt about the validity of long-buried memories, but it does not disprove them. I think that her research is particularly important for law because many innocent people have gone to prison based on these alleged memories that turn out later to be implanted and false. This research has brought significant attention to memory evidence. I think it should work to make law professionals and jurors cautious about witness testimonies; especially when they involve repressed memories that supposedly happened 20 or 30 years prior to the trial. We need to be aware that suggestion can play a big part in the construction of memories. Police need to understand that what they say to a victim while questioning them can have a huge impact on how the victim recalls the event and the person who comitted the crime. Mental health professionals also need to be aware that how and what they say can influence their patient’s recollection of memories. I think Loftus’ work can provide important information about how to look at and evaluate repressed memories.

A person's memory may not be as strong and as honest as we may have previously believed. Leading the way to prove this is Elizabeth Loftus. I have always believed that memories are memories, they are what have happened in our lives and we have experienced them. I knew that I could lose some of it, but I never realized that with the right suggestion, I could actually gain or even alter memories.

Loftus is famous for her lost in the mall study. She took several adults, ensured with her family that an event like this had never occurred, and basically inserted these memories into their head. At first they did not believe that this had actually happened, but when they were interviewed later on, they had recalled being lost in the mall when they were very young. What really surprised me, was that they would even add on to this false memory. They would insert parts that they had made up themselves into the story. Another study done on false memories involved adults recalling memories within the first year of their birth, which is practically impossible because the hippocampus is not fully developed. Many of the participants recalled a colored mobile (a memory implanted by the researches) hanging over them. Some of the participants even recalled doctors or nurses and masks and cribs. I find this so interesting because many of us know and I have even heard it pointed out that they remember nothing before a certain age, but these participants had recollections of what was going on around them many years before that.

I believe that this is so controversial because it IS a person's memory, whether it is true or not. I broke my arm was in first grade. I am one hundred percent sure of that. If my mom told me that it hadn't actually happened I would be incredibly confused and honestly would not believe her. A memory is a part of somebody and it is crazy to think that a person could implant that into another person. I do not think that this should be as controversial as it is because it is what it is. There is evidence that shows that memories are not as strong as we would like to believe and we should look at ways to ensure that this is not taken advantage of or used improperly, as in the case of Holly Ramona.

Elizabeth Loftus' research is very important and shows how fragile the memory actually is. Her research should be used in helping us discover ways to ensure that false memories are not created in patients of psychologists/psychiatrists or used in interrogations of witnesses.

We have been discussing memory a lot in class this week and it was very fun to see all the work that Loftus has done and how it applies to things we've learned in class. First i decided to get some background information on the distinguished scholar to get a feel of where she came from. She earned her BA in mathematics (which i assume has helped her with her research) and psychology from the University of California. After that she furthered her education and earned her MA and Ph.D from Stanford University in psychology. She has been adding to the psychology field ever since by being dedicated to her research in misinformation effect and false memories. In 2002, she was 58th in the top 100 most influential researchers in psychology throughout the 20th century, making her the top rated woman on the list--quite the achievement. Now to take a look at all of her research:

She created the "lost in the mall technique" which has helped prove that false memory can be created by therapists- which is important when dealing with a case of accusations that were said to have happened much earlier in life. Loftus took several college aged students and contacted their family to make sure that none of the students had ever had a bad mall situation growing up. She then interviewed the kids one by one and told them that "she had heard about their awful mall experience when they got lost in the mall." Even though this had never happened to the students, many started creating elaborate stories about their "flashbacks" of being lost in the mall. This is a key point to keep in mind when in the court because some of the "victims" "memories" could very well have been created due to societal cues.
Another study that Loftus did was have several participants watch videos of a car crash. She then asked the participants varying questions about what had happened. She found that if she asked questions involving the words "collide" and "smashed" the participants described the video has more dangerous than is she used words such as "bumped" and contacted". This is eery to think about because cops ask witnesses several questions about what they see during a crime and it makes you wonder if witnesses answer differently due to the way the cops ask the question. Eye witness testimonies have put far too many innocent people in jail to due, unplanned, accidental false memories--many people and an average joe on the jury probably don't even know such a thing exists.

Loftus has been scrutinized for favoring the defense throughout her research. She is constantly calling into question the credibility of people and their memories.While i can understand where people are coming from when discussing Loftus' work, i do not feel that her work should be critized. She is calling into question what many people would never have even thought about and in my eyes she is working to properly carry out justice in our society. Elizabeth Loftus is a hero to many innocent people that may otherwise have been put in jail after an altered testimony.

information from wikipedia.

Dr. Elizabeth Loftus is a famed expert researcher and psychologist who established herself quiet well while also being a Professor in the Psychology department at the University of Washington. She focuses her light on malleability and reliability of repressed memories which has made her a quiet prestigious cognitive psychologist of her time. Her work alone has brought her much success and has made a major contribution to psychology with the controversial aspect of psychology known as memory. She was born in Los Angeles, California in 1944 and had the goal of once becoming a math teacher but found interest in the area of Psychology while attending UCLA where she received her degree in math and psychology. She continued onto Stanford for her graduate school and took the subject of psychology and honed in on the specific aspect of long term memory. Later she would also receive her M.A. and Ph. D at the University of Washington, where she still currently is employed as a professor.
She began her trek with research designed with investigations of how the mind classifies and remembers information. She has some published work in which she states her main drive is to “I want my work to make a difference in people’s lives.” With this determination in mind Elizabeth set out to look in depth on traumatically repressed memories and eyewitness accounts. This path took her directly into stories and cases involving sexual abuse and defending accused offenders. With this forefront in the making she made her way into the courtroom to testify in over 200 trials as an expert witness on the unreliability of eyewitness testimonies based on false memories, in which she saw to be triggered, implanted, or created in the mind itself. Her core in testifying in such cases shows her hope of preventing an innocent victim from going to prison and therefore ultimately protecting a family’s unity. One of her most famed appearances came when she testified in the Ted Bundy case. With this top-notch trial under her resume she has also appeared on talk shows such as The Oprah Whinfrey Show, published 19 books, and nearly 200 articles. It is obvious she has made quiet a name for herself and is one of the most famed psychologists within the field of memory. She is currently a member of several associations based on psychological aspects and has received many awards for her work.
Through researching Elizabeth rather extensively I learned her determination in defending those accused of crimes that are based solely on memory are not necessarily always false but is in opposition to the idea that psychotherapists encourage their patients to believe they have been actual victims or how they set in stone what may be just a pigment of their imagination. She does not say that repressed memories cannot come back, but states there is no reliable way to determine if each individual in each case is expressing all of these symptoms accurately and therefore this theory cannot be accurate in the idea of all cases. She says real memories are usually more detailed where as when these false memories are present they may seem real but have been formulated through counseling and have been “hardened” to believe that they really did happen. Her quote that caught my eye the most was: “The most horrifying idea is that what we believe with all our hearts is not necessarily the truth.” With her stating this she shows that she is not out to undermine the actual accusers but get to the core of the actual long term memories themselves and admits that these people don’t lie or hide the actual truth but express these in a way that they honestly do believe it’s the truth and this may have come from extensive therapy which in a sense brought these ideas to become more real and in saying that says there is no real scientific way to show that these repressed memories can in any way be held relevant in the court of law when used as a sole indicator as to if someone committed a crime or not.
One of her research findings that I found rather fascinating was her “Shopping Mall Study.” In this study she had teenagers and children programmed to remember when they were lost in a mall as a child. While these incidents never really actually occurred, she questioned them about it, which in turn caused these subjects to have increasing vibrant memories. With this process being similar to that of traumatically repressed memories which can take the same effect by unraveling vibrant memories through extensive therapy. With the subjects eventually admitting they remembered the incident, when in fact it never happened, shows her strength in truth on how false events can actually become a reality in a person’s mind and how these individuals can confuse or combine actual occurring events with those that are dreamt or implanted to mix them into what they believe to be the actual truth. I found this most surprising in the idea that this can actually happen rather easily in numerous cases. It reminds me of the movie “Inception” where the main characters are set out to implant an idea into a subjects head who in reality will accept that idea as their own and act upon it. Like Elizabeth has shown here I found it quiet surprising that this research shows tremendous credibility for her whole cause in how memory itself is amazingly inventive and fragile. This study marks massive credibility in that subjects in eyewitness testimonies are often unreliable and that false memories can be triggered merely by suggestion or giving of incorrect post even information. In all, it raises high doubt in the validity of long buried memories.
I believe her research has been so controversial in idea that she takes all of the cases involving long term repressed memory and questions its validity. It is true that some cases may be right on cue, but others may be exactly what Elizabeth is speaking of. I find the criticism in that Elizabeth shows truth that false memories can be implanted, distorted over time, or mixed with dreams and how there is no accurate way to prove that one’s memories have been kept dormant and hidden from a person’s mind for so long and they can’t appear in a clear cut testimony as is displayed in court for that reason. Critics also see that she can show that there is no accurate proof but also question where is hers? Yes she has done numerous research but then again this research having tremendous credibility cannot be held true itself on a consistent case by case basis in that she may be right most of the time but what about the case where repression of memories is an actual truth? Personally I do not believe it should be controversial due to Elizabeth’s finding and realization that this may just be a possibility and she has established her goal on more than one occasion that this may be a viable alternative to look into deeper in the future. She has raised very many good questions through her work and I credit her 100% and tend to agree with what she has to say. She is not trying to re-write the laws and be the president of the U.S. and force this upon everyone but wants to open the eyes of the jurors and those involved who actually hear these cases and raise the idea that these memories may be in fact false due to this research and these findings and that one cannot just hear ones testimony and say “Well she was the victim and that sounds like a pretty vivid memory, it must be true!”
Her research has helped us understand memory in general to a much deeper extent in that just because someone remembers something doesn’t mean that it is the all out truth. The mind has a unique way of tying false things with real things mending a picture that one thinks is all from reality. Her research has shown that therapy may confirm these ideals and through post event information they can be exaggerated or even taken to a new level that never really even existed. In memory evidence in specific Elizabeth has taken successful leaps in that Eyewitness testimony use to be extremely credible and she now shows that although the subject honestly and truly believes the truth and follows their heart, the mind itself can convert these happenings unconsciously into making one believe that the event actually occurred when it in fact did not, which may be caused just by questioning or influence of other sources. She has taken memory evidence in the court room down off its heavens as a automatic conviction testimony to evidence that is like all other types, even physical, in that it too can be questioned and just as easily can be contaminated or distorted through handling or by processing of individual professionals who use their opinionated guesses. For example, Finger print analysis has been said to be a forensic scientist examiner and it is their personal biases and opinions that derive their conclusion and just like memories these too can be formulated. If someone goes into a therapist like that of Holly in our reading this week and says she says her father looked at her in a sexual way, the therapist labeled this “emotional molestation” and told Holly this. This would generate into Holly’s mind as a confirmation that the look was indeed crude and she was right in her past memories. So through misleading, contamination, or influence of outside sources memory evidence may to be altered and is not as credible as once believed.

Websites used:
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/loftus.htm

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/loftus.html

Elizabeth Fishman Loftu, also known as "Diva of Discloser" while searching to learn all i could learn about her,I found out that Elizabeth was born in Los Angeles, California on october 16, 1944, she is the daughter of Sidney and Rebecca Fishman. Elizabeth father was a physician and a math geek and her mother was a librarian and then became a stay home mother. When Growing up Elizabeth seemed to be a daddy's girl not because she Loved math but because she was raised by her father when her mother passed away when Elizabeth was 14 years old.I Learned that As Elizabeth Grow up she had a goal of becoming a Math teacher but as time went by she found herself studying psychology and measuring people memory with her professor Dr. Jonathan Freeman at the university of Los Angels. After Elizabeth Got Her BA For Double Majoring In Math And psychology she then begin a new journey by finding interest in studying long term memory while at Standford university for graduate school. s the year went by Elizabeth Married Geoffrey Loftu in 1968, they never had kid but they both had a career that changes the world today.
Learning about Elizabeth research seems very long because she was not a stable person. Elizabeth was not stable because of her research in the court room. Elizabeth began her research on traumatically repressed memories and eyewitness accounts and then In 1974 her research got her into courtroom testifying in many trials as an expert witness on the unreliability of eyewitness testimonies based on false memories, which she believed to be triggered, suggested, implanted, or created in the mind. I was surprised to find out that Elizabeth was only testifying because she, "hope of preventing an innocent victim from going to prison" and i was also surprised to learn that drowning was the caused of Elizabeth mothers death; which makes me wonder that her life must have been really bad.
In my textbook I learned that Elizabeth did a research of false memories which was call " Lost In Mall Study" this study was to prove that false information can be implanted in ones head no mater who you are sick or not. to prove such things can happen, i learned about a study she did a while a back where she had others watching crime videos and after it was done she asked them questions about thing that was not in the video but because she said it, they believe her and repeated it as their own memory instead of what was really in the video. I believe Elizabeth research has been controversial because these are problems that our society face everyday, and we as society needs to put a stop to it. Loftus states if events can be so easily fabricated in a laboratory setting, they also can be easily fabricated during therapy or by suggestive family members.I believe this because we must find a cure cause with out one many innocent men and women may end up died or in jail for no reason of what so ever. Elizabeth worked has helped us understand memory in general because it has now give our justice system a better knowledge on how to question witnesses and it has given us a better knowledge to to understand that not everything that is said is true, because lies can be to and it only takes one to hear that lie but at the same time does it mean that every time i say some thing some one can believe it and transmit it into their own life?, because not all memories that arise after suggestion are false, some may be true but yet for other it may be false.
https://webfiles.uci.edu/eloftus/OCRegisterProfileCalvin11-3-02.htm

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/loftus.htm

http://socialecology.uci.edu/faculty/eloftus/

Elizabeth Loftus is one of the world’s foremost experts on memory. She obtained her B.A. in mathematics and psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford University. She is currently a distinguished professor at the University of California, Irvine holding positions in various departments; formerly she was a professor at the University of Washington, where she taught for 29 years.
Loftus’s first significant study is one we learned about in class and our readings. The question she wanted to answer was, what happened when witnesses were questioned by police officers, and what if those questions were biased. To answer this question, she showed people a film of a traffic accident, then asked them questions about the accident. She found that when she asked questions such as how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other, that people made higher estimates of speed. As opposed to a more neutral question asking what speed were the cars at when they made contact.
In an effort to get some real life experience involving eyewitness testimony, she agreed to work with a public defender in a murder case. Following this Loftus wrote an article about her research in the case, it published in “Psychology Today” magazine. Following the release of the article, Loftus began getting calls from lawyers across the country asking for help in there cases.
The next few decades of her life were full of scientific discoveries and legal cases. Some of her research has focused on eyewitness testimony and the psychological and legal aspects. She has also done extensive research on repressed memories from childhood and the idea that these falsely recovered memories can be planted in peoples minds. One of her more famous studies showed that entirely false memories can be planted in peoples minds. She successfully made people falsely remember events from their childhood, such as getting lost in the mall.

The thing that surprised me most about Loftus was the number of high profile cases she has aided in or been an expert witness in. She has testified in hundreds of cases, with some of the more famous cases being the hillside strangler, the Mendez brothers, the Michael Jackson case, the Oklahoma City bombing case, Ted Bundy, and the Ramona case, which we read for class, along with many others.
I also found her to be surprisingly interesting I found this article/interview about her, it is from “Psychology Today” and if you have any interest in her at all, you should take a look at it, it goes into detail then anything else I have found about her.
http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/psytoday.htm

I think her research findings that I found most fascinating were the ones relating to false memory. The idea that you can plant false memories in peoples minds is really interesting, and the fact that the “memories’ get more elaborate and detailed as they remember more is just crazy.
One really interesting thing relating to false memory I found in the article above. Loftus’s mother died from drowning, when Loftus was 14. On her 44th birthday, at a family gathering, an uncle informed her that she had been the one to discover her mother's dead body. Until then, she remembered little about the death itself, suddenly the memories began to drift back, clear and vivid. A few days later her brother called to say her uncle realized he'd made a mistake, that Loftus's aunt had found the body, not Loftus. Therefore, those few days of "recovered" memories were utterly false. "My own experiment had inadvertently been performed on me!" she had written. "I was left with a sense wonder at the inherent credulity of even my skeptical mind."

Loftus and her research is controversial, because the topic and the arena she is displaying it in is so controversial. The people that believe they have repressed memories, genuinely believe what they remember happened, and what they are “remembering” is one of the most horrible things that can be done to a person. So the people that don’t agree with her, firmly believe that she is setting pedophiles and rapists free. The link that I posted above shows examples of what she has to go through and deal with, relating to her controversial work. Here are a few excerpts from letters sent to her. One anonymous letter from an incest survivor concludes, "Please consider your work to be on the same level as those who deny the existence of the extermination camps during WWII." Another, from a jailed minister accused of mass child molestation, begins, "Your dedication and compassion for the innocent have earned my deepest admiration." Yet another, from a confused therapy patient, reads: "For the past two years I have done little else but try to remember. I have been told that my unconscious will release the memories in its own time and in its own way...And I need to know if I am really remembering. The guessing has become unbearable."

On one hand I think her work does need to be controversial, because we can’t just go around believing anyone that does some research on a topic, all research should be questioned. Plus it is a very controversial topic, many people are split on the issue and peoples’ lives and freedom are truly at stake. However, on the other hand I really don’t believe in the idea of memory repression. Therefore I don’t think it should be so controversial, but that is obviously a biased opinion. The idea that people can suppress such grotesque memories from their minds, particularly over a prolonged period of time, it just doesn’t add up. Especially when you factor in psychiatrists and therapists putting these memories into fragile minds.

In my research I found that Elizabeth Loftus was born on October 16, 1944 in Los Angeles, California. She received her BA in psychology and math at UCLA in 1966 and received her Ph.D at Stanford, where she became truly interested in long term memory. Loftus is currently a psychology professor at the University of Washington. She began her research on traumatically repressed memories and eyewitness accounts. According to the Psychology Today article, "the war over memory is one of the great and perturbing stories of our time, and Elizabeth Loftus, an expert on memory's malleability, stands at the highly charged center of it".

Loftus has spent most of her life researching and creating a large body of work which shows that memory is surprisingly inventive and fragile. She has done studies on more than twenty thousand subjects and many of her findings have dis-proven many peoples beliefs. She has shown that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable, that false memories can be triggered in up to twenty-five percent of individuals merely by suggestion, and that memory can be interfered with and altered by simply giving incorrect post-event information. The majority of Loftus' research focuses on repressed sexual abuse memories from childhood, that suddenly reappear in adult women often twenty years or more after the events took place. Her work raises enormous doubt about the validity of long-buried memories of trauma. http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/loftus.htm

The basic information that I gained about Elizabeth Loftus' research is that she investigates the circumstances under which information received subsequent to an accident or crime may cause predictable changes in witness' recollections of the event (Psychology History). One of the things that most surprised me in my research was the idea of "memory work". "Memory work" is the means or process of retrieving the repressed memory through invasive therapeutic techniques such as regression, dream work, hypnosis, visualization, group therapy, and suggestion by a therapist. This concept of "memory work" seems strange to me because it appears that some of these patients might not have ever even had thoughts of abuse until a therapist suggested just that, as in the case of Holly Ramona which we just studied. Also, earlier I mentioned that Loftus' studies proved that 25% of people can retrieve false memories just by suggestion, which means that there are way too many people out there believing things that in actuality are fake.

I think that Loftus' research may be considered controversial because I feel like most people would like to keep the "victim" in the role of the victim. Loftus' work seems to have taken these cases and turned them on their head and instead of believing everything that the victim says, she questions them, not because she believes they are lying, but because she seeks the truth. I don't feel that her work deserves to be controversial, all she has done is opened up another door into the human mind. Her research is just another example of something new that society has had to deal with but eventually people realize the benefits of it.

The research that Loftus has done helps us to understand memory in a more complex way. It helps us to realize just how fragile the mind can be and how easily manipulated it can also become. "The most horrifying idea is that what we believe with all out hearts is not necessarily the truth," Loftus stated in the "Diva of Disclosure" interview. This quote is a scary but eye opening one in the fact that her research has made people possibly start to wonder about memories of their own. Also, her research has brought a whole new light onto the idea of eyewitnesses. Accounts from eyewitnesses use to be thought of as solid evidence but her information has brought new evidence into the picture with the idea of false memories. Most researchers now believe that most eyewitness testimony is incorrect, because the mind can interpret things in different ways. Her research also probably impacts the way eyewitnesses are questions about incidents, because even one biased question can lead the witness to unintentionally take on an entirely new direction in their accounts of what happened.

http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/psytoday.htm
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/loftus.htm

Elizabeth Loftus has become a publically controversial person. She studied to become a math teacher and found her love of psychology at UCLA; she graduated with a BA in math and psychology. Later, Elizabeth studied at Stanford University where she received her PhD. She began teaching at the University of Washington not long after graduating. She began to research the mind and memory, specifically trauma induced memories and eyewitness accounts. Her research shows that false events can become a reality to the mind. She has also found that memories cannot date to before age three; any memory prior to this age is most likely filling in the blanks of what may have happened. Elizabeth researched false memories in a study called the "Lost In Mall Study". In this study, people began to take on the identity of, at one point, being lost in a mall as a child. Many of the participants were never lost as a child, but their false memories led them to believe they had been. She sought out to prove that false information can be placed into one’s mind. Loftus focused her career on sexual abuse stories and defending the accused offenders. She became an expert witness on the fallibility of eyewitness testimonies based on false memories. She theorized that these memories were implanted or created in the mind.

“…testifies with the hope of preventing an innocent victim from going to prison and protecting a family’s unity.” I found this quote interesting when reading one of her bios. The way this sentence is structured, it seems like she has no validity for being on trial. The word “hope” basically says that she does not work with any empirical evidence. I think this is a poorly constructed statement and that this does not portray Elizabeth Loftus’ views/research findings at all.

At 14 years old, Elizabeth mother drowned in a pool. Thirty years later her uncle told her she was the first to find her mother. She began to recall images from her mother’s death and her memory recalled that night. Later on, her uncle confessed with a mistake. He told Elizabeth that her aunt was actually the one who found her mother. This confirms all of her research which indicates that memories are malleable and may be influenced by external factors. I found this very interesting. What she must have gone through when she was younger, thinking she found her mother face down in the water.

George Franklin was accused of killing his daughter’s best friend 20 years after the murder occurred. His daughter’s memory of the killing was vivid, but not until 20 years later. One detail, her testimony did not match up with the aspects of the crime. Loftus testified on behalf of George Franklin at the trial, providing her research findings of false memories and further explained his daughter’s mistaken memory.
I do not think that her research should be as controversial as it has been. I think the media may play a large role in why she has been so controversial; they make her out for being the bad guy for letting a “monster” loose. When, in actuality, there was no “hard evidence” on the suspect at all. Elizabeth’s work is necessary in understanding the brain and what occurs during, and after, a traumatizing event. Although it may be controversial to some, I think her research has paved the way for other psychologists to create further research in understanding memory. The mind is highly misunderstood and unknown; her work brings rise to a whole new field of psychology to flourish.
http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/loftus.htm
http://socialecology.uci.edu/faculty/eloftus/

Even though Elizabeth Loftus’s research is used in defending the innocent against heinous accusations, people still send her hate mail. People send her letters that describe in detail what tore their family apart and it always includes someone accusing someone else (most likely a parent) of sexual abuse when they were a child. I was just really surprised at how many cases there really were of this.

I read her article called "Misinformation and Memory" that was published in Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1989. I find this very interesting because you can alter critical details of someone’s memory simply by implanting a thought into that person’s head. In the article the event where ‘Mike’ remembers a screwdriver when he had seen a hammer but said screwdriver because someone else said they had seen a screwdriver. ‘Mike’ knew that the object was metal, but when he heard another talk about a screwdriver then ‘Mike’ was sure the object was a screwdriver. It goes to show how suggestions can manipulate and change details of a person’s memory.

Loftus’s research is controversial because she is making discoveries that are having a huge impact on trial cases. People who are trying to figure out what is wrong in their life are going to therapy, having memories of sexual abuse appear, and then they are told that the abuse didn’t really happen. Some people are so sure that someone has taken advantage of them and hurt them in such a way that they may never look the same at them again. Then they go to court over it only to find out that the abuse only happened in their head and not in real life. But there may be a case where someone was abused and this research would show them as a liar when they really were abused. I do believe that there are innocent people in jail (not many but a few) and these people may be in there because of false accusations as a result of false eyewitness testimony.

In memory evidence in particular, her research has helped understand why innocent people end up in jail. An eyewitness is one of the best pieces of evidence (besides a recording of the event) that can be used against someone in court. But as her research shows, memories change with time. It can explain why someone’s statement to the police may change. Memory can be reconstructed to agree with someone else’s memory of the same event. This is very important because to make a strong case you need all eyewitness testimony to say the same thing. Unfortunately, if one eyewitness recalls something different, it could just be them or it could also be that everyone else’s story is the one that is incorrect. I think that law enforcement officers should know about this research so that innocent people don’t go to jail and so that the right criminal can be caught.

http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/

So in researching Elizabeth Loftus i found out that she is an extremely intelligent woman pushing the envelope with memory research. She does a lot of research on the brain and specifically memory which plays a key role in any court case. When a crime occurs, witnesses, victims, and perpetrators are not on the stand the next day. Everyone involved is asked over and over again what they saw, heard and remember so memory evidence is vital in assuring a case is solved accurately. I was most surprised by an article saying that Loftus was confused on the stand at one point and struggled to explain her research. She seems like someone who would be on her toes at all time and fully able to back up her research at any given point in time. But the most interesting research was as follows: "Consider one of the imagination exercises. Participants are told to imagine playing inside at home after school, hearing a strange noise outside, running toward the window, tripping, falling, reaching out and breaking the window with their hand. In addition, we asked participants questions such as "What did you trip on? How did you feel?" In one study 24 percent of the participants who imagined the broken-window scenario later reported an increase in confidence that the event had occurred, whereas only 12 percent of those who were not asked to imagine the incident reported an increase in the likelihood that it had taken place." She argues that an act of imagination simply makes the event seem more familiar and that familiarity is mistakenly related to childhood memories rather than to the act of imagination. Imagination and the mind are very interesting aspects of psychology and relate to cases involving false memories maybe created by imagination in a therapy session. Her work has been controversial because studies of the mind are very hard to record accurately. At this point in technological development we have no way to see what is actually going on in the mind of any given human being. Just because someone marks that they believe something happened on a survey does not by any means ensure that they actually felt that way or that the event happened. Any studies with non record-able memory evidence has a right to be scrutinized. Her work sheds light on new ways to look at cases involving memory and the mind, and opens the door for countless opportunities for research and investigation. Without her out-of-the-box thinking cases involving memory including the Romona case would have turned out differently.

Elizabeth Loftus is a huge proponent of the idea that memory is very fragile. I personally support this point of view also, making this topic all the more interesting for myself. One of the biggest themes that comes across when we take courses in cognitive psychology is the suppremecy of the brain as a biological being. It does what it needs to do to reduce the amount of grey matter that will be used, the amount of brain glucose it will use and has various mechanisms to weigh how important the fact to be recalled is to remember. It won't remember some facts if it's not going to influence survival at a later time.

These are the biological bases of the fragility of memory that is so highlighted by Loftus. She also does expert testimony in trials and presumably has saved many innocent people from getting executed. I wanted to read some of the things she has written. There were a few really interesting titles that caught my attention. Some of these are: "Imagination and... power", "Imagination inflation", "Dream interpretations and false belief", and "the price of bad memories." Because of time constraints, I haven't got to them. Maybe I'll read them and then post again on this blog.

I found a quote from her that I really like: "what we think we know and believe with all our hearts isn't' necessarily the truth." This is a partial quote so it's not the whole thing, but it gets the point across really well. After a point, we must ask ourselves what it is that really happened and if our past is not what we think it is. But this is a largely philosophical debate. As psychologists, we must adjust ourselves to the idea that our experiences and recall of experiences are not objective.

On a day to day basis, I don't really care if I went to JCPenny or Younkers last saturday. But, if suddenly I have to remember it to prove that I am innocent, I don't know what I would do. And I think this is a good counter to people who oppose Loftus's theory by saying that she focuses her studies on nontraumatic events, making her findings inapplicable to traumatic events. The point is, memory has failings at all times. These failings do not matter in normal life. But they become a big deal if that information is used in the court systems. One of Loftus's findings is that memory deteriorates at both extremes of the arousal spectrum. Being interviewed by police is highly stressful, suggesting that it is also more likely to be damaged memory.

Loftus has also found that the wording of questions could give preference to one form of answer to another. As part of our class project, when I was interviewing some people, I found this to be a very perplexing problem. It seemed that if I posed my question in a particular way, I would get some answer, then change the question to validate that it was the truth and I would get a contradictory answer!

Loftus's work is definitely very important to the scientific community (interms of some of the findings I have already discussed). I tend to agree with her findings, but I am not convinced that they are the full answer. I feel, although I have no way of proving it, that some events are better recalled than Loftus expresses they are. Unfortunately, I have no real knowledge in this area and fall short.

Elizabeth Loftus is listed as 58th of the 100 top psychologists of the 20th century by The Review of General Psychology, the highest woman on the list. She is among the 20 most mentioned psychologists in textbooks. Elizabeth Loftus has received six honorary degrees and has published numerous books. A staunch believer in justice, Loftus has acted as a defense witness in over 250 cases. Her work on memory reconstruction has redirected the way memory is used in court and studied in psychology.

I learned Elizabeth Loftus had an unfortunate childhood. She remembers being fondled by a babysitter, but this memory is eclipsed by the drowning of her mother when Elizabeth was 14 years old. She hardly remembers her mother, sad when I consider she is regarded as on the world's foremost experts on memory.

Elizabeth attended UCLA and earned her Bachelor's in math and psychology in 1966. In 1970 she received her P.h.D from Stanford University. While attending university Loftus studied long-term memory, this sparked her interest in and study of memory repression and recovery. Loftus has always been aware of the need for accurate witness testimony, her work made her skeptical of the prevailing idea that memory replay is exact. She believed, and later showed, memory recall is malleable.

One of Elizabeth Loftus' earliest work was the lost in the mall study. Loftus was able to successfully "implant" a false memory of being lost in the mall in 25% of her test group. She tested yound children and adolescents she was sure had not been lost in the mall before. This study strongly showed the possibility of false memory being accompanied by witness enthusiasm and belief, as those who "remembered" being lost in the mall began to "recover" vivid details and became more committed to the belief. Using only the power of suggestion, Elizabeth Loftus cast doubt on the veracity of all witness testimony.

Loftus' most famous works were discussed in class. I read she pursued her famous car contact/crash scenario after becoming stagnated in her other work. She asked herself what she is able to talk about at parties and realized her work with witness testimony was her chief interest. According to an article I found, Loftus has said, "I just decided one day that I wanted something with more practical application than that [long-term memory]. I asked myself, 'What do I talk about at parties, when there is no reward attached, except that I am interested in it?' My answer: legal stuff." After a friend let her know money is awarded for traffic studies Elizabeth struck upon her now renowned work. She began to examine how witness memory can be influenced by the phrasing of a question (e.g. hit vs. crash, stop vs. turn) This initial work was enough to gain Elizabeth Loftus recognition, but it was not enough to satisfy her desire to make a difference.

Elizabeth has served as a defense attorney for Ted Bundy and O.J. Simpson. Her work has gained criticism from opponents in psychology and law. During the childcare abuse scandals of the 1980s and 1990s Elizabeth challenged the ideas holding up the advocates case. During this scandal scores of childcare workers were arrested and charged with abuse, including allegations of satanic rituals and bestiality. The charges against these workers were based entirely on "recovered" memories from children. As I read the cases involved with the much larger scandal, I felt as though I were being slapped in the face with five fingers of hindsight. Many cases were rushed, extremely questionable and leading interrogation techniques were used, and many cases seemed to follow a predicable pattern of witness involvement. Although these cases may have been the expression of a deeper sense of anxiety experienced by the American public, Loftus saw through the hysteria and sought the truth. Her work has helped overturn the tide of accusations based solely on recovered memory.

I found it interesting that Elizabeth's own interest in justice and the danger of false accusation based on false memory led to her own dismissal from the University of Washington. This was due to a Jane Doe case. Jane was a young girl when she testified her mother had abused her. Jane was videotaped at six detailing the abuse, but she could not remember any specifics eleven years later when she watched the tape for the first time. After a while, Jane "recovered" the memory, a case claimed by proponents of memory recovery. Elizabeth was suspicious of the case, and later began to suspect the idea of the abuse was planted in Jane's mind by her stepmother and father in order to win her custody during divorce proceedings. Elizabeth felt her investigation was more journalistic than academic and made several precautions to respect the rights of Miss Doe. Despite this, Elizabeth's interest in the case back-lashed when Jane became aware of the interest and complained of a violation of privacy. Elizabeth was let go from the University of Washington. In the end, however, Elizabeth is proud that Jane Doe's case cannot be used as precedent in court, and I think that speaks volumes to her character.

Elizabeth F. Loftus is a professor of psychology and a professor of law at the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford Univeristy in 1970. He focus that she studied was: human memory, eyewitness testimony and courtroom procedure. Loftus has published 18 books and more than 250 scientific articles and has been an expert witness in hundreds of trials..such as the McMartin preschool molestation case. Her famous book Eyewitness Testimony won the National Media Award from the American Psychological Foundation. She has received honorary doctorates from Miami University, Leiden Univeristy and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Loftus has recently been elected president of the American Psychological Society.
-http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm

I was really surprised as to how qualified Loftus is. She seems to have many experiences to make her more than qualified especially to be the president of the American Psychological Society.

I decided to do more research on the McMartin Preschool Molestation Case. This trial was the longest and most expensive trial in American History. When it was all over 7years later, 15 million dollars later, there was still no verdict.

The case goes as follows: Mother Judy Johnson of her son who is 2 1/2 years old whom attend McMartin preschool. Johnson told detectives that school aid Ray Buckley the 25 year old son of the owner had raped her son. Despite the fact that her son was unable to identify pictures. Children were manipulated to think the they were raped although no evidence showed they were. Loftus was the expert witness in regards to false memories in this case.
-http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcmartin/mcmartinaccount.html

A quote said by Loftus: The most horrifying idea is that what we believe with all our hearts is not necessarily the truth.

What is controversial about Loftus's theories is that she challenges to interpret repressed memories. Many people want to believe all that a child has to say. It should however be noted that they can easily be swayed in what they say. Loftus does not deny child sexual abuse occurs or that it might be possible for the mind to repress a trauma, she questions the accuracy of the memories. She strives to resurface these memories. She specifically researches the term "Memory Work" which is the means of process of retrieving repressed memories through invasive therapeutic techniques such as regression, dream work, hypnosis, visualization, group therapy, and suggestion by a therapist.
Loftus gives lost of evidence as to how the use of "memory work" plays a role in memories that lead to false memories that become true to the victims although they never existed.
-http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/loftus.htm

Loftus does not believe that memories can be repressed. "Imagination not only can make people believe they have done simple things that they have not done but also can lead people to believe that they have experienced more complex events." Loftus

http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/1431/Repressed-Memory-Versus-False-Memory-STUDIES-ON-FALSE-MEMORIES.html

You can be easily convinced of many things. It is amazing that Elizabeth Loftus has studied and questioned what you would just assume to be correct. Verbal evidence used to be taken as pretty legit evidence, but it is now understood thanks to Loftus as something far more complicated. I totally understand how her studies are controversial, they do however have plenty of merit and credibility. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about Loftus.

Elizabeth Loftus is a psychology professor at the University of Washington, but is more known for her expert research in the psychology field. She found her love for psychology as an undergrad at UCLA, where she then went on to study more aspects of psychology as well as memory at Stanford. Wanting to make a differnce in people's lives, Loftus works on traumatic experiences and eye witness credibility. Using her expertice and knowledge, she looked into many criminal cases. This eventually landed her in the courtroom as a witness on the stand. Loftus has appeared over 200 times, for both the defense and state, on the unreliability of eye witness testimony. According to Loftus, eye witness memory can be altered by triggers or false implatations. These memories can even be created by oneself as discussed in the following article:
http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm
Loftus has testified in numerous cases, and helped out numerous families. She even testified in the Ted Bundy case, one of the most famous in American history. With that experience, it is no wonder she has made such a name for herself in both the psychological and judicial community.

What i found most interesting about Loftus' research is that when one testifies as an eye witness they truely believe that they are correct in their identification. This may be one of the reasons her work is so controverial. People trust themselves and truely believe that they are correct and if someone tells them otherwise the witness may have their doubts about the research. I know that if i testified as an eye witness and my credibility was in question i would be offended and sceptical. I also now know that when people are found to be wrong in eyewitness cases that they did not lie, the witness truely thought they had identified the right person. This can be shown further in one of Loftus' experiments: The "Shopping Mall Study". In this study, Loftus interviews people about their childhood experience. The experience of being lost in a shopping mall. Little to the knowledge of the participants they were never lost in the mall as a child. Loftus was making the whole story up. She would tell the participants she had details from their family memebers telling about the incident. Before long, Loftus had the participants believing, and even recalling, information about an event that never took place.

I found this research to be quite compelling and convincing. It was obvious that our brains are so sophisticated and complex that the participants were able to create memories of an event that never occured. It is a very interesting study and helps to poke wholes in eye witness testimony. Despite the fact that it puts scrutiny to eye witness testimony, people are still convicted, whether falsely or correctly, based on it. I think in some cases eye witness testimony is crucial, but i also believe that it should never been the sole evidence against a defendant. This is also where controversy may arise.

Despite the information from Loftus, and her extensive work within her studies, jurors still have pretty strong beliefs about eye witness testimony. I think this may be because the witness is so convincing, they seem to know all details and are very confident about them. This puts strain on the jury to decide how credible the witness really is.

I think this study and blog relates so much to what we talked about in class, as well as previous blogs. It also is very relatable to the course because it pertains to law, but more importantly, psychology. Through biological psychology we can make a witness seem less reliable and therefore, in some cases, keep innocent people out of prison. Loftus' research is very important to the scientific and judical community.

http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_the_mall_technique

i forgot to incorporate the link that I read about Dr. Loftus's research: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm