Chapter 8
Summary
This chapter explores the false memory experiments done by Elizabeth Loftus. With her different studies she was able to implant false memories in her subjects and observe how memories could be changed over time or with some convincing. In Loftus’s Lost in the Mall experiment she had subjects read through accounts of their childhood (three being real and the fourth a false description of them being lost in the mall) written by their family. The subjects then elaborated on the stories. Loftus found that twenty-five percent of the subjects suddenly remembered this event as if it had happened and seemed to narrate them in greater detail as time passed.
Other psychologists who disagree with Loftus claim that traumatic events can be repressed and how traumatic memory is stored differently in the brain, meaning that her studies do not prove anything in the case of a daughter suddenly remembering twenty years later that her dad raped her as a child.
Discussion
I really enjoyed this chapter. When we discussed this in my psychology class, the professor also mentioned how we often make the memories of our loved ones our own, so that we remember something that happened to our spouse as happening to us instead. I do believe we have false memories. Sometimes I’ll even say as I’m explaining something, “…but that could be a false memory.” There are also times when I’ve discussed an event with one of my siblings and they’ve remembered it totally differently than I did. I have no idea of deciding who’s right, so I usually don’t bring up the discrepancy (I learned very quickly that that leads to an argument where it is difficult if not impossible to prove one’s side).
Maybe I should start keeping a diary. :)
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