Editorial: "Can it be ethical to implant false memories?"
From repressed memories to faulty eye-witness testimony, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has made her name working on false memory. She tells Alison George how recollections can be conjured up, and how this process could even be used in therapy
You study the fallibility of memories. Are we all prone to making things up?
We all have memories that are malleable and susceptible to being contaminated or supplemented in some way.
I hear you collect accounts of false memories.
Yes, mostly embarrassing mistakes that politicians have made. For example, Mitt Romney had a memory of being at the Golden Jubilee – an important festival in Michigan – and it turned out that the event occurred nine months before he was born.
How does this happen? What exactly is going on when we retrieve a memory?
When we remember something, we're taking bits and pieces ...
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