Elizabeth Loftus and Repressed Memories Essay Example

to fight and claw to get attention of any sort (Neimark, 1996)”.

Before college, she had plans to be a high-school math teacher, ‘because math was the one thing my father and I could talk about’(Neimark, 1996). But despite her efforts, the relationship with her father remained distant, a chasm made deeper by the subsequent entrance of her reportedly neglectful step-mother. Despite the death of her mother, and an emotionally cold father, Loftus is close to her two brothers. She got along with them “extremely well and the three of the Fishman children had and still have a very tight bond because it was them against the world of the cold, distant father, the evil stepmother and stepsiblings”(Neimark, 1996).

Education Elizabeth obtained a bachelor of mathematics and psychology from the University of California in Los Angeles, California in 1966. While in graduate school at Stanford, Loftus developed an interest in long-term memory research while obtaining a master’s degree and Ph. D. in Psychology (Neimark, 1996). Additionally, she has received 6 honorary doctorates for her research on human memory. While at Stanford, Elizabeth met Geoffrey Loftus, a psychologist, and was married in 1968. . The couple tried was but were unable to have children. Loftus freely admits that it was her love of work that broke up her marriage in 1991.

Her husband disapproved of her over-involvement with work. Her husband’s idea of marriage was to spend more leisure time together and Elizabeth genuinely couldn’t conform (Conkle, 2007). Career Elizabeth was a Professor of Psychology and Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington for approximately 30 years and her research over the last 20

years has focused on human memory, eyewitness testimony and courtroom procedure. She had appointments in the Department of Cognitive Sciences, and is a Fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

She has published approximately 25 books, and over 450 scientific articles. One of her most widely read books; "The Myth of Repressed Memory" was translated into Japanese, French, Dutch, Taiwanese and others (Loftus ; Ketcham, 1994). Beth learned first-hand about repressed, false memory 30-years ago, when her uncle informed her that she was the first person to find her mother in the swimming pool. The memories and pictures began to drift back quickly and vividly. Yet, soon afterward, her uncle called and said that he had made a mistake and it was er aunt who had found her mother first in the pool (Hoult, 2005).

Loftus has done an inordinate amount of research with over 20,000 subjects, showing that eyewitness testimonies and repressed memories are often unreliable (Niemark, 1996). Loftus has served as the expert witness/consultant in hundreds of cases, including the Abscam case, the trial of Oliver North, the Rodney King beating, the Menendez brothers trial, the Bosnian War trials in the Hague, the Oklahoma Bombing case, and litigation involving Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, Scooter Libby, and the Duke University Lacrosse players (Neimark, 1996).

Loftus testifies in court for “as much as $2,500 for a 10-hour day and for as little as nothing” (Hunt, 1991, para. 27). Elizabeth’s research and the publicity surrounding these notorious court cases has triggered threatening letters and public and professional criticism. At some universities, armed guards were provided for her when she spoke on her memory research (Loftus,

2002). However, Loftus has served as the 1984 and 2004 President of the Western Psychological Association and in 1998 she became president of the Association for Psychological Science (APS).

In 2006, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society, which was established in 1745 by Benjamin Franklin and is the oldest learned society in the United States. The Review of General Psychology ranked Dr. Loftus as the 58th of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century (Haggbloom, et. al. , 2002). Today Elizabeth Loftus is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California where she teaches courses in the department of Psychology ; Social Behavior Criminology, Law ; Society and Cognitive Sciences in Irvine, CA (Loftus, 2002).

Article Review: “The Reality of Repressed Memories” by Elizabeth Loftus Dr. Elizabeth F. Loftus (1993) in her article titled, “The Reality of Repressed Memories”, examined repression and examines the following questions:

1. How common is it for memories of childhood abuse to be repressed?
2. How are jurors and judges likely to react to these repressed memory claims?
3. When the memories surface, what are they like?
4. How authentic are the memories? (Loftus, 1993, p. 519).

Loftus suggests that “repression is one of the most haunting concepts in psychology” (Loftus, 1993, p. 18).

She said that, “Something shocking happens, and the mind pushes it into some inaccessible corner of the unconscious (Loftus, 1993, p. 518)”. In the article, she describes numerous cases where individuals report repressed memories from decades earlier. The majority of Loftus' research focuses on repressed sexual abuse memories from childhood that suddenly reappear in adult women often twenty years or more after the events took place. Her work raises enormous

doubt about the validity of long-buried memories of trauma.

She discussed numerous cases where “long-repressed memories returned in therapy”. For example, she mentioned an article published in People magazine in 1991 where actress Roseanne Barr Arnold, discussed a “long-repressed memory of abuse at the hand of her mother at age 6, which returned” to Roseanne while she was “in therapy” (Loftus, 1993, p. 519). Loftus cited several studies which examined the evidence of “amnesia for abuse, childhood dissociation and memory deficits”; however the results where varied in range from 18% to 59% which suggests “no absolute answer (Loftus, 1993, p. 22)” to the question, “how common is repression (Loftus, 1993, p. 522). ”

However, Loftus (1993) suggests that repressed memories “are as varied because humans experience a poverty of recollections in the first several years in life” (Loftus, 1993, p. 519). Dr. Loftus (2002, 1993) suggests that therapist interpretations or questioning could contaminate repressed memories. To illustrate, Loftus & Herzog (1991) interviewed 16 therapist who had seen at least one repressed memory case and 13 (13 out of 16; 81%) said they customarily believe their clients.

She mentioned several examples of cases where clinicians actually implied that to the client that they showed definite signs of trauma, even though the client could not remember the trauma. Loftus (1993) suggested that the accused are motivated to verbally and even mentally deny an abusive past and she agrees that simple denial doesn’t and cannot constitute convincing evidence that the victim's recollections are not genuine nor can the allegation that abuse actually occurred be factual.

In her article, Loftus also discussed possible reasons for false memories (e. . , confirmation bias, suggestive

prodding, tapering with the evidence, pseudo patient studies, self-fulfilling prophecy, and memory replete with multiple telling examples) that could feed into the construction of false memories. Also, “The Courage to Heal” by Bass ; Davis (1988), a self help book about incest was cited. In this book, Loftus (1993) pointed out the following excerpt from the book, “If you think you were abused and your life shows the symptoms, (e. g. , low self esteem, suicidal or self-destructive thoughts, depression, sexual dysfunction) then ou were abused" (Bass & Davis, 1988, p. 22).

Conversely, Loftus explained that that the 495 page book taken out of context may distort the meaning intended from the authors. With regard to the juror attitudes question, in the article it was reported that Loftus, Weingardt, & Hoffman (1992) researched several juror simulation studies by examining how people may react to repressed memory cases which resulted in “One of the clearest results that, in general, the majority of subjects believed that the claims made by participants in two cases was true and accurate (Loftus, 1991, p. 23)”.

Currently jurors and judges are more familiar with the literature about false repressed memories. Loftus (1993) cited several empirical studies which suggest that people’s earliest recollection do not date back before the age of three or four (Kihlstrom & Harackiewicz, 1982; Howe & Courage, 1993; Pillemer& White, 1989). Then she also objectively described the different view for how both authentic or false repressed memories may surface (Loftus, 1993). Historical Context and Significance of the article

Although, false repressed memories research sounds fairly non-controversial in our current times, unreliability of eyewitness testimonies based on false memories, believed to be

triggered, suggested, implanted, or created in the mind in the 70’s and 80’s was controversial and news worthy. Despite the fact that Dr. Loftus has received harsh criticism from both professional colleagues and members of popular society, she has continued to research the controversial topic of repressed human memory.

Her research has changed the way we view repressed memories and false memory. Her pioneering work on human false memory and false allegations of sexual abuse, has bought about a growing body of repression research. Dr. Loftus should be commended for her historical, brave sacrifice and challenging contribution to the field. Although, I am quite sure that Dr. Loftus is very busy, she took the time to answer a question from me via email. This was very impressive to me.