Elizabeth Loftus Memories Quotations

We can't reliably distinguish true memories from false memories,

My work has made me tolerant of memory mistakes by family and friends. You don't have to call them lies. I think we could be generous and say maybe this is a false memory.

Memory, like liberty, is a fragile thing.

Without independent corroboration, little can be done to tell a false memory from a true one.

We all have memories that are malleable and susceptible to being contaminated or supplemented in some way.

Just because someone thinks they remember something in detail, with confidence and with emotion, does not mean that it actually happened, .. False memories have these characteristics too.

My experiments reveal how memories can be changed by things that we are told. Fact, ideas, suggestions and other forms of post-event information can modify our memories. The legal field, so reliant on memories, has been a significant application of the memory research.