Re-examining the “Lost in the Mall” study

In this interview, Ruth Blizard lays bare in stark detail the false premises of the “Lost in the Mall” study by Elizabeth Loftus. This study has been one of the major pillars on which false memory societies all over the world have erected their false defences against adults’ memories. In examining the ethics, the non-science and the use made of this faulty paper, Blizard dismantles the false defence made from it. Valerie

You have spoken powerfully of the concept of false memory as a “false defence”. Can you explain the original legal context of your phrase?

The notion that false memories could be readily induced by suggestion was promoted by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) as a defence against adult survivors’ testimony that they had been abused by their parents. In cases where survivors had forgotten experiences of abuse, and then remembered again in adulthood, Loftus, and many other “expert witnesses”, used the “Lost in the Mall” research (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995) to allege that these memories were implanted by psychotherapists. This became the false memory defence.

I refer to this as a false defence for several reasons:

No evidence was presented to demonstrate that full false memories were induced in the “Lost in the Mall” study (Blizard & Shaw, 2019).

Believing that one had been lost while shopping in childhood is not analogous to remembering sexual abuse. In fact, a large proportion of subjects can be convinced that they were lost in a mall as children, but none could be led to falsely believe they had been administered enemas (Pezdek, Finger & Hodge, 1997).

To date, there are no studies showing that memories can be implanted for repeated events, as is often the case with childhood sexual abuse, nor for intimate relations with family in general. “Nor is there yet evidence to 37show that false memories can be created with the degree of conviction necessary to sustain protracted legal proceedings involving the police and cross-examination in the courts” (Brewin & Andrews, 2017, p. 20).

The “Lost in the Mall” experimental paradigm depends on an older relative stating that they were present when the subject was lost. Even if a therapist suggests that a patient may have been traumatised, they do not invite trusted family members to convince them that childhood abuse occurred (Andrews & Brewin, 2017).