The Malleability of Memory: A Conversation with Elizabeth Loftus

Elizabeth Loftus, is a world-renowned expert on human memory and Distinguished Professor of Social Ecology, Law, and Cognitive Science at UC Irvine. Elizabeth discusses her ground-breaking work and highly socially relevant work on the misinformation effect, false memories and her battles with "repressed memory" advocates. She describes how getting expert memory testimony was introduced in legal proceedings and the effect of DNA evidence on convincing judges of the problematic nature of eyewitness testimony. Her experiments reveal how memories can be changed by things that we are told. Facts, ideas, suggestions and other post-event information can modify our memories. The legal field, so reliant on memories, has been a significant application of the memory research.