PROFILE Profile of Elizabeth F. Loftus bit of mystery surrounded Elizabeth Loftus’s arrival at Stanford University (Stanford, CA) in August of 1966. At Athat time, a female graduate student in psychology, especially mathematical psy- chology, was a rare sight. Fellow stu- dents did not know quite what to make of this talkative and engaging woman from Bel Air, CA, who was obviously talented but apparently disinterested in mathematical theories. In an informal poll, her colleagues at Stanford voted her least likely to succeed as a psycholo- gist, and soon a pool even sprang up to guess when Loftus would return to Los Angeles and pursue a more glamorous profession. Loftus never dropped out of graduate school, however, and almost 40 years later has managed to prove her doubters wrong. Currently a distinguished profes- sor in the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior and the Depart- ment of Criminology, Law, and Society Elizabeth F. Loftus at the University of California, Irvine (Irvine, CA), with additional appoint- ments in the university’s Department of people can be falsely convinced that programs in mathematical psychology. Cognitive Sciences and the Center for they had a negative childhood experi- She thought, ‘‘That’s my combination; the Neurobiology of Learning and ence with certain foods and subse- that field must be perfect for me.’’ Memory, Loftus has become a leading quently report a lower desire to eat psychologist in the study of memory. them. The article explores questions ‘‘M’’ is for Memory Loftus has focused the bulk of her regarding the nature of memory and After completing her master’s degree in career on both the psychological and even suggests a possible new dieting psychology with Richard Atkinson at legal aspects of distorted or false mem- technique. Stanford, Loftus carried out her Ph.D. ories, and her work demonstrates the training with Patrick Suppes. In her fi- facility with which memories and be- Finding the Right Combination nal year, she began a collaborative study liefs can be molded. Her findings During Loftus’s childhood in Bel Air, with Jonathan Freedman on retrieval of regarding the strength of eyewitness her father was a U.S. Army physician information from long-term semantic testimony and repressed traumatic and her mother was a librarian. As a memory. ‘‘Semantic memory has to do memories have helped change the no- youth, Loftus developed a passion for with your knowledge of language and tion that such testimony is absolutely true and fictionalized crime in books concepts,’’ she explains. ‘‘For example, reliable. She has testified or consulted and television. She became adept at that you know that a canary is a small in hundreds of court cases, including mathematics, possibly because her father bird, or that an animal that begins with famous ones such as those of the Me- was proficient in it as well. ‘‘That was ‘Z’ is a zebra.’’ Loftus and Freedman nendez brothers, Oliver North, and the one thing we had in common to talk measured how rapidly people could re- Martha Stewart. Although her work about, namely him helping me with my trieve concepts from their semantic has not been without controversy, it math homework,’’ she says. In 1962, memory from certain cues, like ‘‘name a has garnered Loftus many accolades, Loftus enrolled at the University of Cal- bird that is small,’’ to try to understand including an honorary law degree from ifornia, Los Angeles (UCLA), as a how individuals organize and search John Jay College of Criminal Justice mathematics major, but the allure of through their long-term knowledge (New York, NY) in 1994, the inaugural equations and Greek symbols soon (2, 3). Henry and Bryna David Lectureship faded. ‘‘I absolutely loved geometry and Loftus continued to study semantic from the National Academy of Sci- algebra, but when I got to calculus, I memory for a few more years after ences (NAS) in 2002, and the 2005 don’t know; I just wasn’t that crazy receiving her Ph.D. in psychology. How- Grawemeyer Award for Psychology about calculus,’’ she says. ever, shortly after moving to the Univer- from the University of Louisville Loftus’s academic interests then be- sity of Washington (Seattle, WA) in (Louisville, KY). In 2004 she was gan to expand. ‘‘At some point I took a 1973, the excitement of her research elected to the NAS. psychology class as an elective, and I project began winding down, and she In her Inaugural Article (1), Loftus just enjoyed the material so much that I desired a research area with more social explores an avenue for memory distor- kept taking more psych classes,’’ she tion that goes beyond the courtroom by says. Upon graduation from UCLA with This is a Profile of a recently elected member of the National examining the ramifications of instilling a double major in mathematics and psy- Academy of Sciences to accompany the member’s Inaugural false beliefs about fattening foods. She chology, she learned that Stanford Uni- Article on page 13724. and her colleagues found that some versity had one of the leading graduate © 2005 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA www.pnas.org͞cgi͞doi͞10.1073͞pnas.0506223102 PNAS ͉ September 27, 2005 ͉ vol. 102 ͉ no. 39 ͉ 13721–13723 Downloaded by guest on September 30, 2021 relevance. ‘‘At one point, I actually said to myself, ‘Why am I working on retrieving canaries and zebras from semantic memory?’’’ she recalls. ‘‘‘Do I really deeply care about structure? What do I like to talk about when there’s no external reason to be talking about it?’’’ As it turned out, her fascination with crime and tricky legal issues overlapped with her expertise in memory. In 1974, Loftus obtained a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to study memory distortion. She showed films depicting complex automobile acci- dent scenarios to participants and stud- ied how post-event information could distort their memories. Asking a leading question, or even changing one word in a question, could distort a witness’s rec- ollections (4, 5). For example, replacing a neutral word like ‘‘hit’’ with a sugges- tive word like ‘‘smashed’’ caused more witnesses to recall seeing broken glass at Loftus and her laboratory members with Alan Alda in Aldrich Park, University of California, Irvine campus. the scene, when none was actually Left to right (front row): Erin Morris, Alan Alda, Cara Laney, Chris Clarke-Stewart, and Elizabeth Loftus; present. Loftus believed that eyewitness (back row): Chris Manno and Shari Berkowitz. testimony by itself should not be enough to convict a person. Although these studies focused on automobile accidents, and testify about eyewitness identifica- studies by Loftus examining false memo- the results were applicable to a broad tion and memory distortion. ries through suggestive interventions (7). range of complex events. The technique, known as forced feed- Lost in a Shopping Mall To better relate her studies in a ‘‘real- back, involved recruiting a group of world’’ context, Loftus began consulting While consulting on a case, Loftus be- adult subjects, with a close relative of with attorneys and attending courtroom came highly interested in repressed each participant helping the researchers trials. In 1974, she assisted a public de- memories and was shocked to find a compile a brief summary of some child- fender in a murder trial, explaining how widespread belief in the legality of hood events that actually occurred. Lof- her findings about memory distortion such memories with almost no credible tus and the relatives would then create a could be applied to his case, because the support. She became intrigued by the detailed, but fictitious, summary of eyewitness accounts were conflicting; controversy surrounding repressed and when the subject was lost in a shopping the defendant was eventually acquitted. allegedly false memories and took it mall. The subjects were told the summa- After Loftus wrote a summary of this as a personal challenge to study this ries and asked whether they recalled case in Psychology Today (6), legal ex- phenomenon. them and, if so, to provide additional perts immediately took notice. ‘‘Right details about the events. Over the next 2 away, lawyers saw a connection between weeks, the subjects returned to the labo- their cases and my studies,’’ she says, ‘‘Do false memories have ratory and were again told the summa- ‘‘I started being asked to speak at legal ries and asked whether they had any education seminars and for groups of consequences for people more recollections. By the end of the defense attorneys, civil attorneys, and study period, Loftus found that about law enforcement.’’ in that they affect 20% of the participants would accept Loftus even volunteered to provide the false memories as their own, and in testimony on eyewitness identification, subsequent thoughts a few cases would embellish the memo- but such testimony was unprecedented ries and make them more vivid when and thus generally inadmissible. After and behaviors?’’ recounting them, much like in cases of numerous failed attempts to testify, one repressed memories. judge finally allowed Loftus to proceed, As expected, some critics quickly dis- though the personal timing was terrible. Designing suitable experimental sce- missed her findings. ‘‘Some people said, ‘‘That day was a little bit tricky,’’ she narios of false memories became Lof- ‘Well, maybe the event really happened, remembers, ‘‘getting one call from my tus’s first obstacle. In 1991, she had an maybe they did get lost in a mall, and brother saying my father just died and epiphany. ‘‘I had just given a lecture at you just extracted a true memory in- then another call from a lawyer saying the University of Georgia (Athens, GA), stead of a false one,’’’ she explains.