Why Is Elizabeth Loftus Unreliable Memory

The aim of Loftus and Palmer’s study was to investigate how language can be used to manipulate or distort one’s memory in an eyewitness testimony.

Another argument against the Memory Theory involves it’s circular nature if fake memories are implanted within a person who did not actually experience what the memories are about, and only ‘seems to remember’, via brainwashing for example.

From a scientific perspective, memory is not a reliable source. Although the big picture might be accurately recalled, the specifics of the event often lose its precision as time progresses. In addition, human memories often vary because of differences in interpretation, beliefs, and values. As a result, it would not be surprising if Jeannette Walls remembered events differently from her siblings. For example, since “Maureen always had plenty to eat” (Walls 173) and “was more or less living with neighbors” (Walls 249), she likely views life in Welch more positively compared to her siblings. Further, one person may think an event was more significant than another. Even though Jeannette’s story may not be completely accurate, it is truthful in her perspective. In other words, since Jeanette believes that her memory is accurate, then she is being truthful. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men…” (Emerson 1).

Loftus argues that people can be shaped to remember their past in different ways. She used a study about getting lost in a Mall to show that individuals can be prompted to recollect the whole events that occurred to them (Loftus 74).

Memory is one of the most critical parts of cognition. It is important because it is involved in almost every aspect of cognition including problem solving, decision making, attention, and perception. Because of this importance, people rely on one’s memory to make important decisions. The value of one’s memory in this society is so high that it is used as evidence to either save one’s life or kill one’s life during murder trials. But as many of the cognitive psychologists know, human’s memory can cause many errors. One of these errors is false memory which is either remembering events that never happened or remembering events differently from the actual event. This finding of false memory raised big interests among psychologists and

False memories are an apparent recollection of an event that did not actually occur. The reason why false memories happen are due to the fact that one's brains can only handle so much.There has been several experiment pertaining to the phenomenon, to find how it works.In the next part of the experiment the psychologist showed the participants a word list.False memories are very common and can happen to anyone. On very rare occasions false memories can be harmful to someone and the people around them.False memories are so common that they affect all of a person's memories. False memories can be made more clear by others memories or they could become more distorted. False memories have caused many wrongful convictions. A psychologist

Elizabeth Loftus is a cognitive psychologist. I chose her because I love criminal justice and psychology. Her studies have to do with both, so she was the perfect choice. She is known for studying memory. She plays a huge role in psychology and the legal system. She conducts studies about how memory affects eyewitness testimonies. She has written more than 400 publications (McNally, 2007). She is different than other psychologists studying memory because she investigates memory for naturalistic events (McNally, 2007). She does not study memory by using a list of words or studying nonsense syllables like Ebbinghaus did. Elizabeth Loftus has published plenty of articles talking about how alibis being inconsistent does not equate to them being liars. Inconsistency does not equal accuracy. She has also written articles about how confidence does not equate to honesty.

One scary night, Jennifer was going through an event where her body was taken by force in the book, “Picking Cotton”. Would you be able to pick out a face from a line up? The biggest issue is putting together the puzzle pieces of the crime that took place when you’re the one who is experiencing the traumatic event. We all have been scared before but, if you really think about it do you really see the small details or the big picture? The law enforcement works hard to make sure common mistakes don’t take place during these investigations and assure we don’t send away the wrong person away for the crime. After, attending a seminar at Somerset Community College on February 7, 2017, we can now understand a little more about memory and how’s it’s processed during a traumatic event while also, learning about Jennifer’s story.

Elizabeth Loftus is a psychologist and professor who researches false memories and repressed memories. Jacque Wilson, a CNN reporter, covered several of her researches in Trust your memory? Maybe you shouldn't. Professor Loftus has been consulted on several court cases on false memories, but after her consultation on a case to defend George Franklin who was being convicted for rape and murder of his daughter's best friend when she was a child based on a 'repressed memory' over ten years old. After some conversations with Eileen Franklin, the daughter, and her psychiatrist, Professor Loftus began to believe the "repressed memories" were accidentally created rather than resurfaced.

Loftus popped up a story at the beginning of her speech that a man named Steve Titus, whose life had been destroyed by a rape that has completely no connection with him. Loftus mentioned how the victim changed her position, form “That one is the closest.” to “I’m absolutely positive that’s the man.” and how Titus suffered in his later life although he had been proved innocent ------ he lost his job and wasn’t able to find a new one, he also lost his money and his fiancé. He was living in a stressed and depressed condition, then he died soon after this bad experience. Loftus led up her topic “false memory” from this sad story ------ all the misunderstanding in this

In the chapter Lost in the Mall, Elizabeth Loftus a psychologist and a professor at University of Washington does experiments about telling people something that happened were they were young then within two days people tell the story and add all different memories off of it and they honestly believe its true.

In Loftus’s book she talked about a woman named Beth Rutherford had meet with a church counselor who had assisted and alleviate her memories. She had a traumatic memory of being held down by her mother while she was being raped to her father from a young

a memory is not an accurate representation of the truth. In simpler terms, is that when people tried to recall who the murder was, they did not actually point to the right one, people

While these studies do not fully exemplify the harmful reality of false memories, they take a step towards understanding how these false memories might occur in real-world settings. As Loftus (1997) discusses, it is only natural to wonder whether or not this research is applicable to real-world situations such as being interrogated by law officers or in psychotherapy. What researchers have learned, and can apply to this practical problem is that there are social demands on individuals to remember and come up with detailed memories. Not only that, but memory construction through suggestion and imagining events has been shown to be explicitly encouraged when people are having trouble remembering events (Loftus, 1997).

Memory facilitates necessary functions in daily life activities, but it is not a perfect mechanism in operation. Goldstein (2011) states that memory is, “…the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present” (p.116). There are many adaptive functions within the complexities of the human memory system and the interlinked constructs between each function leave room for doubt in the accuracy of recollection. Study of the human mind has opened avenues of discovery on the inner workings of our brains and the resulting knowledge suggests that humans are prone to creating false memories and even remembering things that never actually happened. A great deal of information has been written explaining the nature of memory errors and within the following pages a real-life case offers a glimpse into how recall distortions and memory errors can wield unpleasant consequences. Memory errors can be avoided with a significant effort, but the truth remains that no one is perfect and memories are subject to individual bias.