Elizabeth Loftus

We talked briefly on Wednesday November, 7th about the work of Elizabeth Loftus concerning the suggestibility of memory. Loftus has created quite a name for herself in this area of study, and a lot of controversy as well. I know that one study that Loftus conducted involves showing participants a photo that includes a stop sign, and then asking about the yield sign, which often prompts people to remember that there was a yield sign, in the picture, rather than a stop sign. One problem with this is they are not given the opportunity to say that there was not a yield sign, so this implantation might not really be there. Some other studies have suggested that, that image of a stop sign remains in memory. She has also done work by prompting memories through the description of an event, such as showing participants a video of a car crash, than asking half of them how fast they thought the car was going when the cars “smashed” into each other and the other half are asked how fast the cars were going when they “bumped” into each other. Later participants are asked if there was glass at the scene of the accident, and more of the people from the “smashed” group report remembering glass. At the very end of class a person brought up controversy surrounding Loftus’ work, specifically commenting on the fact that Loftus has some conflicting ideas with one of the professors here at UofO. I assume she was referring to Jennifer Freyd, who does a lot of research on betrayal trauma theory, a theory Loftus has takes issue. I have not ever met Jennifer, but I work with one of her grad students in her lab and I am conducting experiments on betrayal trauma theory in that lab. Where Loftus and Freyd disagree is on recovered memories, and their validity. Loftus argues that because of this suggestibility that recovered memories are not valid memories. That people might believe that they are real, but they were lead to this through their memories suggestibility. There is a lot of compelling arguments that indicate that memory if fallible, I am not taking issue with that. In fact, I have seen the documentary we are watching next Wednesday and that is a really good example of just that. That these kids were coached by authorities with preconceived ideas about what had happened to them, and that may have created these memories in the minds of the computer students. Though there is also some very compelling evidence that, at least the father was an open pedophile. The best part of the film, in my opinion, is that is doesn’t seek an answer necessarily, rather it just tells the freedman’s story. I am not sure her stance, but I doubt that Freyd would argue that memory can’t be tainted and is suggestible, she would argue, however, that recovered memories, especially of traumatic events, are a reality and it is detrimental to trauma victims when people, like Loftus, try to discredit their real memories. Freyd’s theory suggests that there is a spectrum of trauma; reaching from fear (car crashes, natural disasters) to betrayal (sexual molestation perpetrated by a family member) and that people who experience betrayal trauma are more likely to dissociate and forget the event, as a survival technique. Because, if your parent abuses you as a defenseless child, you still need them to provide you with other things, thus it is advantageous to forget the trauma. So, while it is a common argument that more emotionally charged situations tend to be remembered in greater detail, because of the emotional state of encoding, this hypothesis proposes an adaptive reason for forgetting, and than later recovering memories, memories that are real. This is a gross oversimplification, but I think a really important debate that is heated in the psychology world, and on our campus. To me a lot of what Loftus is doing is really dangerous. One study that supports Freyd’s position involved researchers finding medical records of children who were brought into the hospital for sexual abuse, they than went out and found these children as adults, and asked them questions about their history, and about abuse, a large percentage of them had no memory of their abuse, and I believe some also reported at least some period of not remembering their abuse. A lot more can be said about this debate, I just think it is important to note that Loftus is a potentially dangerous figure is psychology and that, while she has some interesting and important results concerning suggestibility, we need to be very careful and sensitive when we look at memories of trauma, because it would be terrible to further traumatize victims through disbelief. But admittedly convicting innocent people of sexual abuse is also very traumatic.