Memory

Elizabeth Loftus

Memory is imperfect. This is because we often do not see things accurately in the first place. But even if we take in a reasonably accurate picture of some experience, it does not necessarily stay perfectly intact in memory. Another force is at work. The memory traces can actually undergo distortion. With the passage of time, with proper motivation, with the introduction of special kinds of interfering facts, the memory traces seem sometimes to change or become transformed. These distortions can be quite frightening, for they can cause us to have memories of things that never happened. Even in the most intelligent among us is memory thus malleable. 

A healthy distrust of one's memory, and of memory in general, is not a bad idea. When all is said an done, memory is selective; the memory machine is selective about what gets in and selective about how it changes over time. This may be adaptive in many ways. Why should we cling tightly to those memories that disturb us and spoil our lives?? Life might become so much more pleasant if it is not marred by our memory of past ills, sufferings, and grievances. What good does it do for my friend Diana to remember clearly all the ways an old beau has mistreated her? We seem to have been purposely constructed with a mechanism for erasing the tape of our memory, or at least bending the memory tape, so that we can live and function without being haunted by the past. Accurate memory, in some instances, would simply get in the way. Now, knowing this, others can--if they so wish--take advantage of us. Advertisers and politicians, for example, can bend memory to their advantage. In doing so, they are simply tampering with a system that serves us well in some ways but occasionally does us in.

According to the cliche, memory fades. In fact, however, it grows. What may fade is the initial perception, the actual experience of the events. But every time we recall an event we must reconstruct the memory, and so each time it is changed--colored by succeeding events, increased understanding, a new context, suggestions by others, other people's recollections.