The Meaning of Memory

From the world’s leading memory researcher, a provocative answer to an existential question: How far can we trust our own memories?

'The most influential female psychologist of the twentieth century' THE NEW YORKER

'A memoir of memory itself . . . our mentality becomes the true subject of this fascinating account' LAWRENCE WRIGHT, author of THE LOOMING TOWER

Most of us think our memories are a tidy archive of high-definition footage, a recording of our most meaningful experiences. But over the course of decades of research, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has come to an unsettling conclusion: our recollections are fragile, malleable constructions, often altered in the process of accessing them.

Through her own remembered personal story – starting with the death of her mother when she was a child – and the pathbreaking research that has defi ned her career, Loftus reveals the truth of just how manipulable our minds can be. Weaving case studies with gripping real[1]life stories of her time as expert witness for some of the most infamous court cases, including Ted Bundy and Harvey Weinstein, The Meaning of Memory shows how police questioning can alter our recall; how easy it is to plant a false memory; and how unreliable memories recovered through therapy and hypnosis can be.

The Meaning of Memory, like Loftus herself, fearlessly questions today’s popular narratives on memory, and challenges one of our most fundamental, deeply held assumptions: that what we swear we saw with our own two eyes can be trusted.