Modified: 2014-01-02
More recently, Elizabeth Loftus has conducted a long series of studies on eyewitness testimony. She has described how, after repeated and leading questioning, eyewitness accounts become more and more detailed. Further, as more questions are asked, eyewitnesses become more and more convinced of the truthfulness of their answers. However, her experiments show that what many subjects (around 20%) are remembering is not the event itself but the questions about the event.
Another related and controversial topic is repressed testimony. In fact, over half of the states have passed laws allowing criminal proceedings to occur on the basis of repressed testimony. Repressed testimony occurs when someone "remembers" an event that occurred in the past and that had been locked up for a long time. Typical examples include childhood memories of sexual abuse or of witnessing traumatic events. There is a great deal of controversy raging right now about whether repressed memories are truly memories or artifacts. Loftus has recently succeeded in creating completely false memories in subjects by embedding false information within a larger story that is completely true (except for the one falsehood). Subjects, during debriefing, are shocked to learn that their memories are not veridical. Interestingly, subjects' accounts of the false memories contain significantly fewer words than their accounts of true memories. Perhaps in recognition of Loftus's research, the AMA holds that accounts of repressed memories in therapy should not be accepted at face value.
The controversy continues to the present day. A 2013 study found that a majority of clinicians surveyed, while less accepting of the concept than in the past, still believe in the reality of repressed memories and that they should be treated in therapy. In contrast, fewer than 30% of research psychologists surveyed believed that repressed memories were real.