GIA 2008 Excellence Winner
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The Truth Is Not Out There
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The Robert G. Fenley Writing Award - General Staff Writing
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
Publications and Periodicals
The Truth Is Not Out There
Excerpt from article:
Just because you remember something doesn't mean it actually
happened. As it turns out, if you relate a memory to a group of people,
25 percent of them will seem to remember it happening, even if it never did.
Some of us can be made to remember riding in hot-air balloons that never carried
us, getting sick on ice cream we never ate, enjoying trips we never took.
Cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D., has conducted
hundreds of psychological experiments to demonstrate the existence and
implantability of false memories. Her work has earned her both acclaim
and disdain; she has been an expert witness or consultant in a bevy
of criminal and civil cases, including the celebrity trials of O.J.
Simpson, Michael Jackson, and Martha Stewart. Loftus has also received
death threats for releasing data that showed false memories could play
a role in repressed memories of sexual molestation.
Scientists often liken the brain to an unbelievably powerful computer.
But that analogy fails when it comes to memory. "We don't
just
remember things," says UAB psychologist Carl McFarland, Ph.D.
"We also infer things." This process is called memory reconstruction
because that's exactly what the brain does: reconstruct a whole
memory from bits of information its neurons have stored. "Each
time you reconstruct an event, you make new inferences," says McFarland.
This research calls into question the reliability of our memories and
has profound implications for the legal system, as well as for the way
we see ourselves and our lives.
Contact: Cindy Cardwell, ccardwell@uab.edu
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