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Memory: Surprising New Insights into How We Remember and Why We Forget
Our memories are our most reliable sources of information about ourselves, our friends and lovers, our jobs. Or are they? We know we may occasionally forget someone's birthday, miss appointments, or lose track of details. But what about the times we're sure we remember something, only to find out it didn't happen that way? Memory is a look at man's oldest nemesis. Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus tells us not only about the workings of the memory, but also why memory is a faulty faculty, an often unreliable source for the truth. She offers insightful analysis into the many dimensions of memory and discusses the ramifications of these findings in a variety of contexts and offers specific hints on fighting forgetting.
207 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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October 20, 2025
AN EXCELLENT EXPLANATION OF HOW MEMORY WORKS
Elizabeth F. Loftus is an American psychologist and expert on human memory, and is currently a professor at UC Irvine. She has conducted extensive research on the misinformation effect and the nature of false memories (see her books such as ‘Witness for the Defense,’ and 'The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse').
She wrote in the Introduction to this 1980 book, “Memory is something we usually take for granted, but stop for a moment and imagine life without it. Every day we would have to learn everything all over again… Do memories last forever? Many people believe that everything we learn is permanently stored in the mind, even though particular details may not be immediately accessible. With hypnosis or other special techniques, these inaccessible details could eventually be recovered. As we shall see, this belief is now being seriously challenged. New studies suggest that our memories are continually being altered, transformed, and distorted. After nearly a century of experimental research, psychologists are beginning to discover a great deal about this and other aspects of mental life…
“What are the consequences of this malleability of memory?... we obviously cannot now modify [memory] on command. But memory can be modified partially. Every day, we do this to ourselves and others. Each of the above extremes has its own milder parallel today. Our memories of past events change in helpful ways, leading us to be happier than we might otherwise be. It also changes, however, in harmful ways, and can occasionally cause us serious trouble.” (Pg. xiii-xiv)
In Chapter 1, she explains, “memory is… a complex construct of experiences stored with particular attention to importance and accessibility… Every event and new piece of information does not immediately etch itself into our memories. Rather, there are at least three distinct stages to a memory system, and information must pass through all of them in order to be remembered for more than a half-minute or so. The system’s three memory stages are called sensory register, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM)… Suppose you are browsing through a bookstore and notice a book… the information on the cover enters your memory system by means of … the eyes. That experience dictates a purely sensory memory, which briefly holds a virtually literal record of the image. That image will decay quickly, disappearing in less than a second or so. If the information is to last longer, it must be transferred quickly to short-term memory… Unless you consciously attend to information in STM, it will decay within 15-20 seconds.” (Pg. 13-15)
She continues, “Long-term memory is the largest component of the memory system. It is practically limitless… Long-term memory holds information only a few seconds old, such as points made earlier in a conversation. It also stores information several decades old, such as an older person’s reminiscences of childhood,” (Pg. 15)
She suggests, “Long-term memory is more or less thought of as a permanent storehouse of fact. It contains all the events of a lifetime… But storage is not the problem. In order for this vast library of knowledge to be useful to us, there must be some plan or scheme to the way the information is arranged. Otherwise, we would not be able to find anything. How is long-term memory arranged? The analogy to a library and its card catalog… seems to be a useful one… we use ‘indexes’ to call up information that is catalogued in long-term memory.” (Pg. 27)
She notes, “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… The memory traces can actually undergo distortion. With the passage of time, with proper motivation… 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.” (Pg. 37) She points out, “false information can be introduced into a person’s recollection. It can add to the memory… or it can actually transform the memory…” (Pg. 47)
She recounts, “Wilder Penfield… was operating on epileptic patients … Penfield discovered that when he moved his stimulating electrode near … the hippocampus, some patients re-experienced events from their past life… Wilder Penfield’s stimulating electrode captured the imagination of psychologists and has provided one of the most vivid pieces of evidence for the contention that memories are stable and permanent---a theory that might be dubbed the videorecorder model...
“But let us look more closely at what Penfield actually did. He started off with 1,100 patients… Penfield himself said that this ‘memory’ response occurred… only 3.5% of the time. Thus, these ‘memory’ responses produced by the stimulating electrode were relatively rare. In an article … Penfield reviewed each one of these cases… It turns out that many of these … people claimed to hear nothing more than some music or some people singing. Only a handful said anything that indicated they had an experience even remotely resembling a real memory… real memories were not being revived, but rather the patients were ‘constructing’ memories that did not necessarily correspond to any real experience… In short, although Penfield would have us believe the stimulation of the brain causes actual memories to surface… the sketchy utterances of the patients do not show that they were reliving past experiences, thus casting suspicion on Penfield’s ‘remarkable record.’” (Pg. 50-54)
She argues, “although hypnosis is held up by many to be the magic cure for getting at deeply buried memories, this isn’t necessarily the case… Rather, it seems that hypnosis encourages a person to relax, to cooperate, and to concentrate. In this state, people feel free to talk… All too often, totally false information comes out… No solid studies exist that show recall during state of hypnosis is any more accurate or complete than recall under ordinary waking conditions. What is worse, people under hypnosis have been known to ‘recall’ events from their past confidently and to fabricate future scenarios with the same confidence.” (Pg. 57-58)
What about so-called ‘truth drugs’? “Sometimes people strongly want to confess but cannot bring themselves to do it. The drug gives them an excuse… So-called truth drugs have also been used in psychiatric interviews, for example to aid a patient’s recollection of traumatic experiences. The drugs… have a dramatic effect on a patient… The drugs then seem to relieve the patient from the anxiety and guilt that block good communication. But the two medical officers who made the most extensive use of the technique concluded that in almost all cases they could obtain essentially the same material and emotional release in the course of therapy without using drugs at all... Other studies … have shown that it is relatively easy to maintain a lie despite injections of a truth drug… The results showed that normal people with no overtly pathological traits could stick to their invented stories and not confess.” (Pg. 61-62)
She points out, “We must never underestimate one of the most obvious reasons for forgetting, namely, that the information was never stored in memory in the first place… The thing we wish to remember didn’t last long enough for us to absorb it, it lasted long enough but we didn’t notice it, or we noticed it but didn’t pay sufficient attention to ensure it would make its way into long-term memory.” (Pg. 74)
She reports, “If a person is hit in the head or receives a brain injury in some other way, various events that occurred just before the trauma may be forgotten. Like the shock of experiencing a disaster, brain injuries can wipe out the immediate and surrounding circumstances. This is called retrograde amnesia.” (Pg. 84)
She explains, “Recall appears to be at its best in subjects in their mid-forties. Serious decline is not noticeable with subjects under sixty years of age… An older person who appears to have a vivid memory of college graduation, for example, has inevitably recalled that event many times. The memory then is not from 50 years ago, but partially from the time the event was last recalled.” (Pg. 114)
She notes, “Many people suffer memory impairments in later life… The evidence seems to indicate sensory memory functioning does not change with age, and short-term memory functioning does not change with age, and short-term memory declines only slightly if at all. The real problems are in storing and retrieving new information, which are functions of long-term memory.” (Pg. 116)
She states, “Although witnesses try hard to identify the true criminal, when they are uncertain---or when no one exactly matching their memory appears in the lineup---they will often identify the person who best matches their recollection of the criminal.” (Pg. 164)
Ms. Loftus’s work is controversial in some quarters, due to her work (and even support for) with persons (falsely?) accused of sexual abuse discovered in ‘recovered memories’ through hypnosis. But this book has only fascinating information, and little if any controversy.
Elizabeth F. Loftus is an American psychologist and expert on human memory, and is currently a professor at UC Irvine. She has conducted extensive research on the misinformation effect and the nature of false memories (see her books such as ‘Witness for the Defense,’ and 'The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse').
She wrote in the Introduction to this 1980 book, “Memory is something we usually take for granted, but stop for a moment and imagine life without it. Every day we would have to learn everything all over again… Do memories last forever? Many people believe that everything we learn is permanently stored in the mind, even though particular details may not be immediately accessible. With hypnosis or other special techniques, these inaccessible details could eventually be recovered. As we shall see, this belief is now being seriously challenged. New studies suggest that our memories are continually being altered, transformed, and distorted. After nearly a century of experimental research, psychologists are beginning to discover a great deal about this and other aspects of mental life…
“What are the consequences of this malleability of memory?... we obviously cannot now modify [memory] on command. But memory can be modified partially. Every day, we do this to ourselves and others. Each of the above extremes has its own milder parallel today. Our memories of past events change in helpful ways, leading us to be happier than we might otherwise be. It also changes, however, in harmful ways, and can occasionally cause us serious trouble.” (Pg. xiii-xiv)
In Chapter 1, she explains, “memory is… a complex construct of experiences stored with particular attention to importance and accessibility… Every event and new piece of information does not immediately etch itself into our memories. Rather, there are at least three distinct stages to a memory system, and information must pass through all of them in order to be remembered for more than a half-minute or so. The system’s three memory stages are called sensory register, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM)… Suppose you are browsing through a bookstore and notice a book… the information on the cover enters your memory system by means of … the eyes. That experience dictates a purely sensory memory, which briefly holds a virtually literal record of the image. That image will decay quickly, disappearing in less than a second or so. If the information is to last longer, it must be transferred quickly to short-term memory… Unless you consciously attend to information in STM, it will decay within 15-20 seconds.” (Pg. 13-15)
She continues, “Long-term memory is the largest component of the memory system. It is practically limitless… Long-term memory holds information only a few seconds old, such as points made earlier in a conversation. It also stores information several decades old, such as an older person’s reminiscences of childhood,” (Pg. 15)
She suggests, “Long-term memory is more or less thought of as a permanent storehouse of fact. It contains all the events of a lifetime… But storage is not the problem. In order for this vast library of knowledge to be useful to us, there must be some plan or scheme to the way the information is arranged. Otherwise, we would not be able to find anything. How is long-term memory arranged? The analogy to a library and its card catalog… seems to be a useful one… we use ‘indexes’ to call up information that is catalogued in long-term memory.” (Pg. 27)
She notes, “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… The memory traces can actually undergo distortion. With the passage of time, with proper motivation… 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.” (Pg. 37) She points out, “false information can be introduced into a person’s recollection. It can add to the memory… or it can actually transform the memory…” (Pg. 47)
She recounts, “Wilder Penfield… was operating on epileptic patients … Penfield discovered that when he moved his stimulating electrode near … the hippocampus, some patients re-experienced events from their past life… Wilder Penfield’s stimulating electrode captured the imagination of psychologists and has provided one of the most vivid pieces of evidence for the contention that memories are stable and permanent---a theory that might be dubbed the videorecorder model...
“But let us look more closely at what Penfield actually did. He started off with 1,100 patients… Penfield himself said that this ‘memory’ response occurred… only 3.5% of the time. Thus, these ‘memory’ responses produced by the stimulating electrode were relatively rare. In an article … Penfield reviewed each one of these cases… It turns out that many of these … people claimed to hear nothing more than some music or some people singing. Only a handful said anything that indicated they had an experience even remotely resembling a real memory… real memories were not being revived, but rather the patients were ‘constructing’ memories that did not necessarily correspond to any real experience… In short, although Penfield would have us believe the stimulation of the brain causes actual memories to surface… the sketchy utterances of the patients do not show that they were reliving past experiences, thus casting suspicion on Penfield’s ‘remarkable record.’” (Pg. 50-54)
She argues, “although hypnosis is held up by many to be the magic cure for getting at deeply buried memories, this isn’t necessarily the case… Rather, it seems that hypnosis encourages a person to relax, to cooperate, and to concentrate. In this state, people feel free to talk… All too often, totally false information comes out… No solid studies exist that show recall during state of hypnosis is any more accurate or complete than recall under ordinary waking conditions. What is worse, people under hypnosis have been known to ‘recall’ events from their past confidently and to fabricate future scenarios with the same confidence.” (Pg. 57-58)
What about so-called ‘truth drugs’? “Sometimes people strongly want to confess but cannot bring themselves to do it. The drug gives them an excuse… So-called truth drugs have also been used in psychiatric interviews, for example to aid a patient’s recollection of traumatic experiences. The drugs… have a dramatic effect on a patient… The drugs then seem to relieve the patient from the anxiety and guilt that block good communication. But the two medical officers who made the most extensive use of the technique concluded that in almost all cases they could obtain essentially the same material and emotional release in the course of therapy without using drugs at all... Other studies … have shown that it is relatively easy to maintain a lie despite injections of a truth drug… The results showed that normal people with no overtly pathological traits could stick to their invented stories and not confess.” (Pg. 61-62)
She points out, “We must never underestimate one of the most obvious reasons for forgetting, namely, that the information was never stored in memory in the first place… The thing we wish to remember didn’t last long enough for us to absorb it, it lasted long enough but we didn’t notice it, or we noticed it but didn’t pay sufficient attention to ensure it would make its way into long-term memory.” (Pg. 74)
She reports, “If a person is hit in the head or receives a brain injury in some other way, various events that occurred just before the trauma may be forgotten. Like the shock of experiencing a disaster, brain injuries can wipe out the immediate and surrounding circumstances. This is called retrograde amnesia.” (Pg. 84)
She explains, “Recall appears to be at its best in subjects in their mid-forties. Serious decline is not noticeable with subjects under sixty years of age… An older person who appears to have a vivid memory of college graduation, for example, has inevitably recalled that event many times. The memory then is not from 50 years ago, but partially from the time the event was last recalled.” (Pg. 114)
She notes, “Many people suffer memory impairments in later life… The evidence seems to indicate sensory memory functioning does not change with age, and short-term memory functioning does not change with age, and short-term memory declines only slightly if at all. The real problems are in storing and retrieving new information, which are functions of long-term memory.” (Pg. 116)
She states, “Although witnesses try hard to identify the true criminal, when they are uncertain---or when no one exactly matching their memory appears in the lineup---they will often identify the person who best matches their recollection of the criminal.” (Pg. 164)
Ms. Loftus’s work is controversial in some quarters, due to her work (and even support for) with persons (falsely?) accused of sexual abuse discovered in ‘recovered memories’ through hypnosis. But this book has only fascinating information, and little if any controversy.
March 23, 2019
Элизабет Лофтус - американский когнитивный психолог и одна из ведущих в мире специалистов в области памяти. Книга "Память. Пронзительные откровения о том, как мы запоминаем и почему забываем" представляет выводы составленные на основе 40 лет теоретических и экспериментальных исследований автора в области памяти. Несмотря на то, что книга была опубликована впервые в- 1980 году и за прошедшие десятилетия произошел значительный прорыв в накоплении знаний и толковании процессов в области когнитивных наук, труд Лофтус представляется мне интересным не только как фиксация определенного исторического момента в развитии мысли о процессах памяти. Общие выводы Лофтус о работе механизмов памяти и воспоминания особенно интересны, тем что приоткрывают возможные пути для понимания самых разных социальных структур, функции которых связаны с накоплением и переработки разного вида информации.
Э.Лофтус показывает на примере многочисленных экспериментов, как человеческая память функционирует перерабатывая воспоминания, связывая их с контекстом других впечатлений, событий и более ранних воспоминаний, видоизменяя даже нашу собственную изначальную трактовку событий. Память представляется как гибкая структура, составные элементы которой видоизменяются с добавлением каждого нового элемента. Процесс воспоминания соответственно является видоизменением, оттачиванием каждого отдельно взятого элемента (воспоминания) под общую структуру. Лофтус пишет: "освежая в памяти какое-то событие, мы перестраиваем воспоминание о нем и оно раз за разом меняется - его окрашивают красками последующие события, более глубокое понимание происходящего, ранее неизвестный контекст".
Структуральное видение функций памяти проявляется и в определении техник усиливания / закрепления запоминания, которые базируются на разных способах систематизации и / или привязывания информации к существующим или знакомым человеку структурам. Так например работает метод локусов (Method of Loci)который предлагает воображаемо разместить информацию в существующей пространственной структуре. Для того чтобы вернуться к этой информации человеку нужно снова себя вообразить себя в этом пространстве и восстановить перед своим внутреннем взглядом его пространственные компоненты - комнаты дома, улицы города и т.п. Мне представляется, что подобные методы базируются на понимании памяти как структуры и потому видимо действенны, однако они предлагают использовать внешнею, наносную структуру для улучшения процессов памяти и только опосредственно затрагивают очевидно существующую внутри каждого человека свою структуру памяти.
Лофтус сопоставляет структуры человеческой, биологической и искусственной памяти и определяет системные параллели. Четыре базовые операции как биологической, так и искусственной структуры памяти это - хранение, индексирование ( оно же нанесение на карту), извлечение и анализ информации.
Особую остроту получают выводы Лофтус, когда полем ее экспериментальной деятельности становиться судебная процедура и экспертиза. По словам Лофтус, зал суда - это превосходная лаборатория для изучения памяти, а свидетели, идеальные объекты исследования. Относительность достове��ности и изменчивый характер человеческой памяти ставят под сомнение такие основы практики правосудия, как презумпция достоверности свидетельских показаний и опознание участников происшествий.
Лофтус заканчивает свою книгу предложением выяснить скрытые достоинства гибкости и изменчивости человеческой памяти.
Э.Лофтус показывает на примере многочисленных экспериментов, как человеческая память функционирует перерабатывая воспоминания, связывая их с контекстом других впечатлений, событий и более ранних воспоминаний, видоизменяя даже нашу собственную изначальную трактовку событий. Память представляется как гибкая структура, составные элементы которой видоизменяются с добавлением каждого нового элемента. Процесс воспоминания соответственно является видоизменением, оттачиванием каждого отдельно взятого элемента (воспоминания) под общую структуру. Лофтус пишет: "освежая в памяти какое-то событие, мы перестраиваем воспоминание о нем и оно раз за разом меняется - его окрашивают красками последующие события, более глубокое понимание происходящего, ранее неизвестный контекст".
Структуральное видение функций памяти проявляется и в определении техник усиливания / закрепления запоминания, которые базируются на разных способах систематизации и / или привязывания информации к существующим или знакомым человеку структурам. Так например работает метод локусов (Method of Loci)который предлагает воображаемо разместить информацию в существующей пространственной структуре. Для того чтобы вернуться к этой информации человеку нужно снова себя вообразить себя в этом пространстве и восстановить перед своим внутреннем взглядом его пространственные компоненты - комнаты дома, улицы города и т.п. Мне представляется, что подобные методы базируются на понимании памяти как структуры и потому видимо действенны, однако они предлагают использовать внешнею, наносную структуру для улучшения процессов памяти и только опосредственно затрагивают очевидно существующую внутри каждого человека свою структуру памяти.
Лофтус сопоставляет структуры человеческой, биологической и искусственной памяти и определяет системные параллели. Четыре базовые операции как биологической, так и искусственной структуры памяти это - хранение, индексирование ( оно же нанесение на карту), извлечение и анализ информации.
Особую остроту получают выводы Лофтус, когда полем ее экспериментальной деятельности становиться судебная процедура и экспертиза. По словам Лофтус, зал суда - это превосходная лаборатория для изучения памяти, а свидетели, идеальные объекты исследования. Относительность достове��ности и изменчивый характер человеческой памяти ставят под сомнение такие основы практики правосудия, как презумпция достоверности свидетельских показаний и опознание участников происшествий.
Лофтус заканчивает свою книгу предложением выяснить скрытые достоинства гибкости и изменчивости человеческой памяти.
November 7, 2020
"Without memory, life would consist of momentary experiences that have little relation to each other. Without memory we could not communicate with one another - we would be incapable of remembering the thoughts we wished to express. Without memory, a person would not have the sense of continuity even to know who or she was."
but
"New studies suggest that our memories are continually being altered, transformed, and distorted."
Chapters in this book are:
Introduction: The Memory Doctor
1. The Power of Memory
2. How Memory Works
3. How Memory Doesn't Work
4.What Causes Forgetting: The imperfect Mechanism
5. Mind and Matter: Influences on Memory
6. Memory in Older People
7. The Consequences of Imperfect Memory
8. The Power of Suggestion
9. Computerizing Memory
but
"New studies suggest that our memories are continually being altered, transformed, and distorted."
Chapters in this book are:
Introduction: The Memory Doctor
1. The Power of Memory
2. How Memory Works
3. How Memory Doesn't Work
4.What Causes Forgetting: The imperfect Mechanism
5. Mind and Matter: Influences on Memory
6. Memory in Older People
7. The Consequences of Imperfect Memory
8. The Power of Suggestion
9. Computerizing Memory
June 18, 2018
interesting read
February 1, 2021
After hearing a lot about Loftus’ work, I’m glad I read it for myself because it seems like it has been greatly manipulated to fit certain agendas.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews