If the last few decades have seen a surge or resurgence of ambiguous memory and identity syndromes, they have also led to important research-forensic, theoretical, and experimental-on the malleability of memory. Elizabeth Loftus, the psychologist and memory researcher, has documented a disquieting success in implanting false memories by simply suggesting to a subject that he has experienced a fictitious event. Such pseudo-events, invented by psychologists, may vary from comic incidents to mildly upsetting ones {for example, that one was lost in a shopping mall as a child} to more serious incidents {that one was the victim of an animal attack or an assault by another child}. After initial skepticism {"I was never lost in a shopping mall"} and then uncertainty, the subject may move to a conviction so profound that he will continue to insist on the truth of the implanted memory even after the experimenter confesses that it never happened in the first place.
( Oliver Sacks )
[ The River of Consciousness ]
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