Elizabeth Loftus on Critics of Her False Memory Research
New Scientist recently conducted a lengthy interview with Elizabeth Loftus about the effects, both person and professional, of the work she has done on studying how false memories can be implanted in subjects.
One of the best parts of the interview was her excellent dismissal of those who attempt to discredit her work with the silliest of claims,
New Scientist: Some researchers argue that you can’t compare such experiments [with college students] to cases of repressed memories of child sexual abuse . . .
Loftus: It challenges their cherished beliefs to say that some of these accusations might be false, so they find whatever ways they can to discredit the work. They say: “They’re just college students”, “They’re just lost in a mall, not being sexually abused”, or “It got implanted through imagination and not through psychotherapy.” But when thousands of psychologists study the human mind, we don’t think we’re only studying college students sitting in a lab. We think we are studying principles that apply to a variety of human beings in a variety of settings. It’s as if somebody said: “You’ve shown that if you shoot somebody in the head with a pistol they die, but you haven’t shown that if you shoot them in the head with a pistol and in a bowling alley, they die.”
Source:
Remember this . . . New Scientist, undated.
The Elizabeth Loftus on Critics of Her False Memory Research by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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