Can Memories Change?
Rachel Aviv describes the way Elizabeth Loftus’s psychology research has established the fallibility of personal memory, and shows how her testimony in court has helped to exculpate innocent defendants (“Past Imperfect,” April 5th). The fact that there is limited experimental evidence for the emergence of memories of trauma long after it occurs does not prove that such memories are a fiction, of course. The malleability of memory, which Loftus’s research has demonstrated, suggests that it is just as likely that memories can be forgotten and later remembered as it is that they can be implanted or distorted.
Posted on April 23, 2021 | Views: 90
cwebb2021-04-23T06:45:37-07:00
by Shayla Love: Memory researchers say these months will eventually become a blur for those of us isolating at home…
A day off when the local school was bombed. Being so bored that waiting for fruit to fall off a gingko tree becomes a source of entertainment. Dead bodies in the street. A pilot, presumed dead, walking into a crowded restaurant to greet his astounded partner and friends.
These are all memories from people who lived through capital-B Big historical events: World War II, the Vietnam War, the Cultural Revolution in China; the scenes and experiences that stuck in their minds decades later.