Episode 31: Professor Elizabeth Loftus – Memory and Conspiracy

Elizabeth Loftus is an expert on memory. A Distinguished Professor in several fields*, her work focusses on false memories, how they can be accidentally created and how they can be deliberately manipulated. We discuss many aspects of memory and how it sometimes relates to the world of conspiracy theories.  We touch on UFOs, Chemtrails, 9/11, Jeffery Epstein, and the moral panics of the 1980s.

*In my introduction, I mangled together the various departments where Professor Loftus is a professor. The correct list is:

• Psychological Science;
• Criminology, Law and Society
• Cognitive Science
• Law

Links to topics discussed

• Loftus’ talk at TAM (The Amazing Meeting) 2014
• “Lost in the Mall” technique.
• Ted Talk with Bad Example of False Memory
• Correlation of confidence and accuracy  in recall (recent work)
• Richard McNally, talk on the memory of alien abductions
• Chemtrail Conspiracy Theory
• Invisible Gorilla demonstration of inattentional blindness.
• Card trick demonstration
• The Retractors
• Alan Dershowitz op-ed on Epstein allegations.
• Cleveland UK child abuse scandal (1987)
• Day-care sex-abuse hysteria (the 1980s and 1990s)
• Color memory – blue more intense with time
• The Mandela effect.
• Whiplash in Lithuania (not Japan)
• Elizabeth Loftus at the UCI School of Social Ecology
• Autobiographical article “Eavesdropping on Memory” in the Annual Review of Psychology
• The Memory Doctor (Slate Article on Loftus)