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Memory

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Elizabeth F. Loftus is an American psychologist and expert on human memory. She has conducted extensive research on the misinformation effect and the nature of false memories (see her book, The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse). In 2002, Loftus was 58th in a list of the 100 most influential researchers in psychology in the 20th century, and the highest ranked woman on the list.

She writes in the Introduction to this 1980 book, "Do memories last forever? Many people believe that everything we learn is permanently stored in the mind, even though particular details may not be immediately accessible. With hypnosis or other special techniques, these inaccessible details could eventually be recovered. As we shall see, this belief is now being seriously challenged. New studies suggest that our memories are continually being altered, transformed, and distorted."

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"Memory is imperfect. This is because we often do not see things accurately in the first place. But even if we take in a reasonably accurate picture of some experience, it does not necessarily stay perfectly intact in memory. Another force is at work. The memory traces can actually undergo distortion." (Pg. 37)
"In short, although (Wilder) Penfield would have us believe that the stimulation of the brain causes actual memories to surface to the conscious mind, the sketchy utterances of the patients do not show that they were reliving past experiences, thus casting suspicion on Penfield's 'remarkable record.'" (Pg. 54)
"But although hypnosis is held up by many to be the magic cure for getting at deeply buried memories, this isn't necessarily the case. Even when hypnosis does work to revive a memory that is temporarily blocked, it does not involve any awesome, mysterious power. Rather it seems that hypnosis encourages a person to relax, to cooperate, and to concentrate. In this state, people feel free to talk." (Pg. 57)
"Sometimes integration involves reinterpreting previously held information to make sense out of it in light of the new answer. When we hear that George stopped therapy with no improvement, we concentrate and emphasize and perhaps even exaggerate his hostility or his patterns of antisocial behavior... These processes are so natural that people do not appreciate the effect that hearing the answer had on their perceptions." (Pg. 139)
"For example, removal of any portion of a mammalian brain does not disturb a particular memory. Thus, memory must be maintained redundantly and be backed up against loss due to injury to any set of brain cells." (Pg. 173)