Elisabeth Loftus

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Elisabeth Loftus’ research has been found to be very important for crime investigations. Loftus has proven that a person’s memory can become plagued by suggestion. In crime investigations Loftus’ research has been able to help juries make a decision on a person’s innocence based off of the accusers, witness, or defendant’s memory. In one of her experiments she had family members tell an individual, a lie that they had gotten lost in the mall when they were a child, as well as, three other facts that were true from the individual’s childhood. Loftus then went back to the individuals and asked them about the day they got lost in the mall. All of the participants went on to talk about the incident in great detail, as if it had been true. Loftus …show more content…

One of Loftus most important conclusions was that a person’s mind fills in gaps that are in our memory. Loftus came up with this conclusion during her experiment where she had families tell one of the family members that they had gotten lost in a mall as a child. The participants were then asked by Loftus if they remembered the event. One of the individuals was able to remember the incident in great detail, even though the event had never happened. This individual recalled, “… I went over to look at the toy store, the Kay Bee store and uh, we got lost… then this old man, he was wearing blue flannel, came up to me…”(Slater, p. 187). These details had not been provided in the in the suggestion. Slater states, “…apparently our minds abhor blank sports, are existentially unprepared for emptiness. We fill in.” (p. 187). Another important conclusion for Loftus’ research on memory is that there is no evidence of repression. Loftus believes that repression does not exist, instead they are “…false memories suggested by therapists and self-help books…”(Slater, p. 196). After researching the subject she found that people who had suffered from trauma remembered what happened obsessively. Slater remarks that there are no cases of victims of the Holocaust who forget they were ever in a concentration camp. A third important conclusion brought from Loftus’ research

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