so a large percentage of the involved showing people say a simulated accident or a simulated crime and then deliberately trying to distort somebodies memory for some detail of that accident or crime so i might. show somebody an accident where a car goes through a yield sign at the intersection but suggested the witness said they saw a stop sign instead of a yield sign and in these experiments many people will adopt the suggestion the we call it misinformation and claim it as their own memory and this phenomenon even has a name now it's called the misinformation effect when we are exposed to misleading information about some of them that we have experience we will sometimes

accept that misinformation incorporated into our memory and of course it causes errors in memory so that's one kind of memory distortion that we've been able to produce experiments over and over and over and as have many other scientists around the world. so you describe have you and your colleagues successfully implanted some false memories into your test subjects which to my mind sounded pretty for magic like presence making some of them think that they were beaten by a goddess kids or nearly drowned and have to be rescued once you implant a painful memory like face can be raised just as easily. well ok so just backing up a slight step you know after we did the study where we distorted memory for a detail of an event we then asked the question just how far can you go with people

could you plant an entire memory into the mind of someone a 1st something that didn't happen and our 1st effort to do that was to plant a false memory that when you were a kid you were lost in a shopping mall with particular people you were crying and frightened and ultimately rescued other people planted other kinds of very rich false memories attacked by an animal nearly drowned and had to be rescued by a lifeguard committed a crime as a teenager that was serious and so these studies showed that you can even implant an entire of men into people's memories now i think what you're asking about is you know would this be traumatic for people well we when i and others have done the studies at the end of the experiment of course we deep brief the subjects we you know we might have you know apologize for having to

use deception we might try to tell them their behavior is very normal we don't want them to feel like a sap. you know people will you know often people are quite fascinated and and you know i've never seen anybody be traumatized by being in one of these experiments and i think if that were a frequent occurrence then our human subject review committees would not be so willing to allow the studies to go forward but i did the question really skin you raise a false memory as easily as you can implanted. it's harder it's well it's harder to take away someone's genuine memory. and then to add something to their memory. but of course in these studies what we've added something and then we're trying to let them know that it wasn't really real and of course no

subjects will accept that what things so that we're finding now is down the road you know what happens to these people do they do they continue even though you've told me of maybe a they're not that didn't happen that way. what are they thinking what's churning around in there and well what we have found is that there may be a little bit of but little bit of fiction that still resides in their memory system but often there are some benefits often they show you know kind of more knowledge about and about memory and even in one study we showed it protects them to some extent against a future attempt to manipulate them so when you know we see some benefits from. having gone through some of these experimental process lease. so discouraging to

finding and rationality have something to do with it i mean this enhanced critical thinking do not believe the 1st thing they're told and there is like always does grain of how the skepticism we with when she know they consume information in general are these people maureen mean and having their memories contaminated so to speak we've just had one study where we showed a future attempt to manipulate them but they were protected to some extent whether it has that has broader effect someone on critical ringback thinking whether in the absence them in some other ways i think that's a great question i think that's for some future researcher to dig into and. that's a that's an empirical question but one that could be investigated what if like conscious of the fact that a false memory can be implanted praises after our interview i know that this actually can can can be done does it help me protect theirs and protect myself from

a manipulation sort of well there are warning studies or studies where people are warned you know watch out. you know you're going to hear a version from another witness it might have some errors in it soca some kind of warning and those warnings do help people resist the influence of suggestive information. unfortunately they say they seem to work only in the short term not in the long term so so when we walk around the world and when you when you leave this interview you might be protected for a little while the short term but you're not going to be walking around you know for the rest of your life with this warning flashing in the forefront of your consciousness to protect you. so so there's

a little bit of good news and then and then you know not so good to those. so when someone speaks about a memory how do you tell that it might be a false one and what are the clues i mean choice of words intonation but in language what are the indications now i mean those aren't the things to look for. again all we have we have asked for example maybe people would express more emotion about their genuine memories than the false memories that are a product of suggestion and when that's been explored it hasn't been found to be true and people can be just as emotional about a false memory as a true one we've even subjected people to neuro imaging put them into a functional magnetic resonance imaging and and done imaging on a true memory versus a false memory when people are telling you something that really happened versus

something they believed happened but didn't. and the brain can't reliably distinguish the true and false memories. there are what you need to know whether you're dealing with a genuine memory or one that is a product of the imagination suggestion or some other process as you need independent corroboration to to know. ok well your findings been used in court to defend against sexual assault allegations or studies such as to famous last in a monastery or the bugs bunny disneyland where people ended up believing memories that were planted into their heads very searchers but one studies show we can make people believe they so bugs bunny in this the land can to magic memories late abuse or betrayal really being planted on you know these types of memories not to serious

for such many patients. you know we have human subjects and ethics committees that review our our proposed research and so we we are probably not going to be able to plant. a deliberate false memory that your father raped you for 10 years in a satanic cult. we wouldn't be given permission to do something quite that drastic and so what researchers have done is tried to think of an analog something you can plant that if it actually happened it would have been at least mildly traumatic and so we have succeeded what will we are other investigators in my field in planning a false memory that you were attacked by a vicious animal or you were bullied or you nearly drowned and had to be rescued by a lifeguard or you witnessed someone being demonically possessed. so.

these experimental studies have been successful in planting these pretty dramatic memories and then we have a lot of studies of you know actual real world cases in this country there are now hundreds and hundreds of people who have been through highly suggestive therapy there or be that has led them to believe that they had memories that were extremely traumatic and they now realize these memories were false. they call themselves who are attractors they've retracted their their memories after doing a lot of you know harm and suffering for their their family members and others whom they accused. you know this isn't a pretty interesting phenomenon from the point of view of a memory scientist many of them have sued their former therapists for planting

false memories some of them getting multi-million dollar judgments from. juries or trial settlements and a study of the studies of these were tractors also tell us about. the whole process by which false memories are planted in the minds of people and even in these cases ultimately disavowed him to show great great now we're back we'll continue talking to dr elizabeth loftus cognitive psychologist and research expert on human memory stay with us.

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and we're back with dr elizabeth loftus cognitive psychologist research expert on human memory dr loftus in one interview you say that people tend to distort some of their own memories to feel better about themselves like seeing their grades at school where better that their actual wear or giving more money to charity that actually d. but why do you make up memories that would make them feel bad. you know i hear i hear that question why would anyone want to be why would anyone want to rip believe or remember that they were you know abused by a family member if it didn't happen. and you know because there's a cost to it you know you get is often get a strange from your family the siblings stop talking to each other there's a lot of disruption and pain and the young my response to that is if there's

a cost to it. there must be a really big benefit so what could be that benefit and in many of these cases the individual who succumbs to this suggested therapy starts to believe and then think they remember these experiences uncorroborated did not i. sometimes impossible experience says why well sometimes they have an explanation for their problems. they are depressed or anxious and now they have an answer but it's not that you were you know a crazy it's not that you're a bad person you were abused they often get a lot of empathy or sympathy from others there they can be bathed in a love bath and get a lot of attention these are some of the. what you might call them the benefits of. having a memory let's not predict that or

a false memory of something that's not particularly pleasant so your experience with plenty of thoughts memories where way to prove that some people's claims to memories of abuse were false and memories were false obtained during therapy but if they are pleased do you have the power to plant false memories in their client tests ray why would they plant memories of abuse i mean why not let members of a happy childhood instead. well i had that you know that i don't think they're they think they're planting false memories on what's happening in many of these scores and scores of cases that i've done a good deal and analyzed you know that the way of the patient goes to the therapist i'm depressed i make sure i have an eating disorder and the therapist has one and only one idea about what the problem is with this patient the sort of sex abuse answer and that therapist may start asking leading questions or providing

information that is misleading like you know in my experience 70 or 80 percent of people with your symptoms were sexually abused maybe something like that happened to you and they are begins this process of interaction that leads this patient to start to imagine and then think they're remembering. something that didn't happen this is not about a therapist sitting down and saying you know boy get out what can i plant in the mind of this patients today. but just continue the thought like if traumatizing bad memories carry planted whatever way re can good ones also be planet i mean terror for instance like i read you do research about planning memories and people to deal with their obesity oh yes they're out so well but let some point i and my my collaborators you know i asked the question what it

will what are the consequences of having a false memory so if i plant a false memory in you does it have repercussions does it affect you down the road does it affect your later thoughts your later. intentions your later behavior and we study this is a series of studies where we planted a false memory that you got sick on a particular food as a child so i might get you to believe and remember you got sick on eggs or you got sick. pickles who got sick on strawberry ice cream and then we find people aren't as interested in eating these foods later on. so we then did the opposite we planted a warm fuzzy memory about a healthy food. like asparagus and then people wanted to eat more asparagus so that really got me thinking that you can plant them fast memory control people's preferences and maybe their nutritional selection maybe make

a dent in the obesity problem in our society and that might be good for people so i mean that could work with anything pretty much like keep no ses i mean to to quit smoking or quit drinking excessively or anything could could could that be you know well really really want to see it and if we did have a false memory that you got sick on a vodka drink and people didn't want word is interested in drinking a vodka drink so sure and in principle that this could be done. with lots of different things you know hypnosis does something different gnosis doesn't get people to tell you i had a memory for x. y. and z. and here is the details of my experience you know it works by a different process but what i'm studying. the creation of memory for things that didn't happen and what the repercussions might be after you adopt one

of these false memories so you can't memory temporary use by therapies not to induce trauma but to actually hide it from the patient to make the patient forget. well and in principle. even though it's a little harder to. erase a memory one of the things that we've done is we've substituted a different memory so in the simple example i make you believe a car went through a stop sign instead of a yield sign so to some extent i've weakened the yield sign in your memory the true detail by substituting another different detail and out that that would be one way that to some extent you could we can or or take away a memory but i'll tell you. when when we learned about this

drug propranolol that it has been used in clinical trials to a race people's memories for a traumatic experience and or weaken their memories let me put it that way let's say you had a traumatic experience you ended up in the emergency room some doctor gave you this propranolol. what it's supposed to do is weaken the memory and minimize the chances that you will develop post-traumatic stress disorder which can be pretty debilitating and something that people you know ought to want to avoid when we asked people whether they'd be interested in taking such a drug if they were offered it at the emergency room after undergoing a trauma. most people said no they didn't want that drug.

they had all different kinds of reasons i mean would it have side effects would it take away some other memories they were scared of it and that kind of taught me that people sheriff their memory you see even even if the memories are bad for them . surely forgetting about pain brings peace ray i mean the ancient greeks knew that you know when they told stories about there were a forgetfulness from which to death so those had to drink to forget their lives so is it ethical for doctors to be raising memories or supplanting real ones with fake ones even in order to help. from from what i understand in the therapeutic world you're not supposed to deceive people or you know tell them lies even even if it's for their own good. and and you know it's not for me to decide you know. what the rules of life should be for

a society it's for all of us together to decide. but at one point when i suggested you know that you don't for example in these food studies you know there's nothing to stop a parent from trying something like this out of their overweight or obese teenager or child. sometimes people resisted that suggestion and they'd say oh my god there she goes she says suggesting that parents lied of their children you know. how awful and my risk you know my response to that was hello santa claus parents lie to their kids. you know probably often for one reason or another not to not usually hurt them but for one reason or another and when you think about it. if you had a child and it were

a choice between being obese and having heart trouble so the short lifespan and higher risk of diabetes or having a little bit of fiction. sprinkled into their memory system that might. dramatically reduce their obesity improve their diet and what will a healthier life what would you choose right that memories from our experiences they basically made us we are right is it possible for someone to plant members in such a way to completely change one's personality is that possible you know and i don't know that's pretty extreme that's one of those things empirical question i got to study that you'd have to get very specific then you know what is it you want to turn a person into and think about how to how you how would you design that study what

would it look like what results could you abscess a paper in principle in principle which you can induce changes in people through through the memory distortion process. right dr after it's been really interesting talking to you thanks a lot for this think it's for your class as i see you've been reading a lot. you've really done your homework here so it's a pleasure talking to you to your baby so much good luck with everything have a great day ok but i'd like.

that i would add that on the other hand i am not out of luck though that that cut me out of the money out of the money there when i got a job. this was a good time to. try to move there i. know not that wasn't bad enough why not there again why exxon and they are all people who believe just a little bit here. bottom of my case i don't want them up with johnny but i are of the moment i thought of mother having a lot of concerns a little i'm a little white could not be old enough to want to think i don't want to put out they are the most hardy without all the mother brother to.

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