Elizabeth Loftus (b. 1944) is the world's foremost authority on the malleability of human memory. Her research has demonstrated that memory is not a faithful recording of past events but a constructive process susceptible to distortion, suggestion, and outright fabrication. Her work has had profound implications for the legal system, challenging the reliability of eyewitness testimony and recovered memories of childhood abuse.
The Misinformation Effect
Loftus's signature finding is the misinformation effect: when people are exposed to misleading post-event information, their memory for the original event is systematically altered. In classic experiments, witnesses to a simulated car accident who were asked "How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" reported higher speeds and were more likely to falsely remember broken glass than those asked about cars that "hit" each other. This demonstrated that the wording of questions can alter memory, with implications for police interviewing, therapy, and legal testimony.
Loftus's most dramatic demonstrations involve implanting entirely false memories of events that never occurred. In the "lost in the mall" study, researchers convinced participants (through family-verified false narratives) that they had been lost in a shopping mall as children. About 25% developed detailed, confident memories of the fictitious event. Subsequent studies have implanted false memories of childhood hospitalizations, animal attacks, and even impossible events (meeting Bugs Bunny at Disneyland). These findings raised serious questions about "recovered memories" of childhood abuse and contributed to the decline of recovered memory therapy.