Can we remember something, that actually never happened? Can we really rely on our memory? Elizabeth Loftus, who studies human memories, answers these questions.
Elizabeth started studying false memories when she came into contact with the case of Steve Titus. Steve was wrongly accused of commiting a crime because a victim saw his photo and she pointed him as the most resembling the rapist. Some time later, she was sure that it was him. Elizabeth wanted to know, what happened in the woman's mind, that she changed his mind from "he's the most similar one" to "I am totally positive with this guy". Elizabeth found out that it's not the only case, when person accused was innocent, but victims recognised them as their executioners.
Most people think that our memory is a recording device, but the truts is that our mind is very subject to suggestion. She proved it by conducting a number of research. For example, she was showing the simulated crime scenes to the people and asked them about what they remember. When she used stong words, like "smash" instead of "hit" (smashed cars, or so on) people tended to talk about higher speed or broken glass, when there was any. She also examined people under some stressful situations. In both cases people were subject to the suggestions.
She tells us that when you feed people with an information what they might have experienced, you can distort or even change their memories. Therefore she gives a conclusion that memory is really fragile and even if we are sure that we remember things perfectly clearly, there is already a lot of false in them.
Vocabulary:
sob - cry hard
- She was lying on the floor sobbing. Her boyfriend had broken off with her a few minutes earlier. She was devastated.
- Come on, there's no reason to sob like this. You didn't fail your exam, it's just a bad grade, but it's passed.
to distort - to change something from its usual shape, meaning or condition, to deform
- Your memories are distorted. When you were six, you didn't fell down from the ladder. You just fell down from the chair, but you were so little that it was such a big heigth for you.
- Oh no! The cake is distorted! It no longer resembles a cat...
to contaminate - to make something less pure or to poison it.
- Your sandwich is contaminated. You'd better throw it away, there is poison in it.
- The river was contaminated by the oil spill, we have to clear it in some way.
inadvertently - not intentional
- I am sorry! I did it inadvertently. I didn't want to hurt you, I swear!
- I spoiled the surprise? I am so sorry, it was done inadvertently. I hadn't known that it was a secret.
erroneous - wrong or false
- You gave me some erroneous information. The lecture took place in the room 101, not in the room 304!
- The diagnosis was erroneous. He didn't have a gastric flu, it was just a food poisoning.
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