Elizabeth Loftus

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Elizabeth F. Loftus is an American psychologist who works on human memory and how it can be changed by facts, ideas, suggestions and other forms of post-event information.

Contents 1 Education 2 Career 3 Honors 4 Jane Doe case 5 Testimony in Scooter Libby trial 6 Other appearances 7 Books 8 References

[edit] Education

Loftus received her bachelor's degree in mathematics and psychology from University of California, Los Angeles in 1966. She went on to receive her MA (1967) and Ph.D (1970) in psychology from Stanford University.

[edit] Career

Loftus is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society, and the Department of Cognitive Sciences, and a Fellow of The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine. She is also an Affiliate Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Law at the University of Washington in Seattle. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Loftus was married to University of Washington psychologist Geoffrey Loftus in 1968. They were divorced in 1991.

One of her studies is the reconstruction of automobile destruction study, which is an example of the misinformation effect. She also developed the lost in the mall technique for creating false memories in the laboratory.^[4][5]In a critique, Lynn S. Crook has questioned the applicability of the lost in the mall study to therapeutic situations^[6] [1]^[7][2] and proposes that the mall study itself was not “subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny” yet it was reported to the media supporting claims that “therapists can implant false memories of childhood trauma.” [3]Loftus has co-authored a journal article entitled "Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Remembering and Repressing", in which the co-authors argue that loss of memory of childhood sexual abuse is similar to the loss of memories of other traumatic or significant events, and provides no evidence of a "repression" mechanism in memory loss.^[8] Loftus in regard to L.M. Williams' study (1994), her abstract states "The findings do not provide cogent support for the claim that a long stream of childhood sexual traumas is routinely banished from conscious awareness and then can be reliably recovered later. The findings do support the claim that many children can forget about a sexually abusive experience from their past." ^[9]

Loftus has been involved in the defense of Ted Bundy, O.J. Simpson, the Hillside Stranglers, and the McMartin Preschool workers.^[10] Loftus is a member of the Scientific and Professional Advisory Board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.^[11]

[edit] Honors

In 2004 Loftus was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2005, she won the Grawemeyer Prize in Psychology (to honor ideas of “great significance and impact”). Also in 2005 she was elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2006, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Loftus has also received five honorary doctorates for her research, the first in 1982 from Miami University (Ohio), the second in 1990 from Leiden University in the Netherlands, and the third in 1994 from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York - an honorary doctorate of laws. Her 4th honorary doctorate, from the University of Portsmouth in England, was awarded in 1998; the 5th, from the University of Haifa in Israel, was awarded in 2005.

She is past president of the Association for Psychological Science, the Western Psychological Association, and the American Psychology-Law Society.

Perhaps one of the most unusual signs of recognition of the impact of Loftus’s research came in a study published by the Review of General Psychology. The study identified the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century, and not surprisingly Freud, Skinner, and Piaget are at the top of that list. Loftus was #58, and the top ranked woman on the list.

[edit] Jane Doe case

"Jane Doe" was the subject of a case study published in 1997 by Dr. David Corwin on issues of repressed and recovered memory.^[12] Neither the study nor later follow-up studies and articles referred to her by her real name. As a psychiatrist retained in a divorce case, Corwin had videotaped an interview with Jane Doe - then six years old - in which she claimed to have suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her biological mother. Eleven years later, Corwin showed Jane Doe the original tape after obtaining approval from her and her guardian. Corwin then videotaped a follow-up interview in which Jane Doe appeared to spontaneously recall another abusive event she had suffered despite having had no conscious memory of abuse in the years since the initial interview. Corwin published a transcript of the tape and an explanatory article. With Doe's permission, Corwin also played portions of both videotapes to numerous professional audiences.

Loftus hired a private investigator in California and together with co-researcher Melvin Guyer undertook a subsequent investigation into the case, reviewed extensive court records and interviewed Jane's mother and foster mother. In 2002, based on the information obtained, Loftus and Guyer published an article entitled "Who Abused Jane Doe? The Hazards of the Single Case History" in the Skeptical Inquirer. The article was highly critical of the scientific validity of Corwin's 1997 article, and questioned the factual accuracy of his account.

On February 23, 2003, "Jane Doe", using her real name of Nicole Taus, sued Loftus, the University of Washington and others alleging invasion of privacy and other torts. Twenty of the twenty-one counts against Loftus were dismissed by the trial court or reviewing courts as a "SLAPP" suit, intended to punish the defendants for academic activity protected by the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment. In February, 2007, the California Supreme Court ordered dismissal of all but one count, allowing Taus to proceed on her claim that Loftus misrepresented herself as Corwin's supervisor in interviewing Taus's foster mother.^{[13] [14][15][16]}

While the lawsuit received extensive media coverage, the settlement has not. The case was settled on August 28, 2007, when Loftus's acceptance of Taus's offer was filed. Loftus agreed to pay $7,500, instead of the amount of over one million that was requested by Taus. Loftus and Taus were each to be responsible for their own legal costs.^{[17] [18] [19]}

[edit] Testimony in Scooter Libby trial

On October 26, 2006, Dr. Loftus was called as the first defense witness in a pretrial hearing in the federal perjury case against Lewis Libby.^[20] The Washington Post reported that under "withering" cross-examination by prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Loftus struggled to defend the scientific basis of her methodology amid apparent contradictions between her testimony and her work, and internal contradictions within her work. ^[21] According to the Post, Loftus also "insisted that she had never met Fitzgerald" previously; however, Fitzgerald reminded her that he had cross-examined her before in another case in which she had been an expert defense witness. ^{[21] [22]}

[edit] Other appearances

Loftus attended and was a speaker at the Beyond Belief symposium on November 2006.

[edit] Books

• Eyewitness Testimony (1979) ISBN 0-674-28777-0
• Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial (1991) ISBN 0-312-08455-2
• The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse (1994) ISBN 0-312-14123-8

[edit] References