0:00:00.509,0:00:04.119
I'd like to tell you about a legal case that I worked on

0:00:04.119,0:00:08.204
involving a man named Steve Titus.

0:00:08.204,0:00:11.433
Titus was a restaurant manager.

0:00:11.433,0:00:15.123
He was 31 years old, he lived in Seattle, Washington,

0:00:15.123,0:00:17.418
he was engaged to Gretchen,

0:00:17.418,0:00:20.366
about to be married, she was the love of his life.

0:00:20.366,0:00:22.650
And one night, the couple went out

0:00:22.650,0:00:25.764
for a romantic restaurant meal.

0:00:25.764,0:00:27.857
They were on their way home,

0:00:27.857,0:00:30.253
and they were pulled over by a police officer.

0:00:30.253,0:00:32.987
You see, Titus's car sort of resembled

0:00:32.987,0:00:36.396
a car that driven earlier in the evening

0:00:36.396,0:00:41.156
by a man who raped a female hitchhiker,

0:00:41.156,0:00:44.457
and Titus kind of resembled that rapist.

0:00:44.457,0:00:46.759
So the police took a picture of Titus,

0:00:46.759,0:00:49.126
they put it in a photo lineup,

0:00:49.126,0:00:51.732
they later showed it to the victim,

0:00:51.732,0:00:54.083
and she pointed to Titus's photo.

0:00:54.083,0:00:57.267
She said, "That one's the closest."

0:00:57.267,0:01:00.801
The police and the prosecution proceeded with a trial,

0:01:00.801,0:01:04.603
and when Steve Titus was put on trial for rape,

0:01:04.603,0:01:07.033
the rape victim got on the stand

0:01:07.033,0:01:11.410
and said, "I'm absolutely positive that's the man."

0:01:11.410,0:01:14.106
And Titus was convicted.

0:01:14.106,0:01:16.126
He proclaimed his innocence,

0:01:16.126,0:01:18.892
his family screamed at the jury,

0:01:18.892,0:01:21.763
his fiancée collapsed on the floor sobbing,

0:01:21.763,0:01:25.158
and Titus is taken away to jail.

0:01:25.158,0:01:28.616
So what would you do at this point?

0:01:28.616,0:01:30.560
What would you do?

0:01:30.560,0:01:33.636
Well, Titus lost complete faith in the legal system,

0:01:33.636,0:01:36.268
and yet he got an idea.

0:01:36.268,0:01:38.483
He called up the local newspaper,

0:01:38.483,0:01:41.563
he got the interest of an investigative journalist,

0:01:41.563,0:01:46.606
and that journalist actually found the real rapist,

0:01:46.606,0:01:49.959
a man who ultimately confessed to this rape,

0:01:49.959,0:01:52.851
a man who was thought to have committed 50 rapes

0:01:52.851,0:01:55.168
in that area,

0:01:55.168,0:01:57.757
and when this information was given to the judge,

0:01:57.757,0:02:00.693
the judge set Titus free.

0:02:00.693,0:02:04.417
And really, that's where this case should have ended.

0:02:04.417,0:02:06.524
It should have been over.

0:02:06.524,0:02:08.737
Titus should have thought of this as a horrible year,

0:02:08.737,0:02:11.742
a year of accusation and trial, but over.

0:02:11.742,0:02:14.250
It didn't end that way.

0:02:14.250,0:02:16.928
Titus was so bitter.

0:02:16.928,0:02:19.508
He'd lost his job. He couldn't get it back.

0:02:19.508,0:02:21.644
He lost his fiancée.

0:02:21.644,0:02:24.075
She couldn't put up with his persistent anger.

0:02:24.075,0:02:26.403
He lost his entire savings,

0:02:26.403,0:02:29.074
and so he decided to file a lawsuit

0:02:29.074,0:02:31.266
against the police and others whom he felt

0:02:31.266,0:02:34.004
were responsible for his suffering.

0:02:34.004,0:02:38.206
And that's when I really started working on this case,

0:02:38.206,0:02:40.535
trying to figure out

0:02:40.535,0:02:42.886
how did that victim go from

0:02:42.886,0:02:45.080
"That one's the closest"

0:02:45.080,0:02:48.887
to "I'm absolutely positive that's the guy."

0:02:48.887,0:02:51.551
Well, Titus was consumed with his civil case.

0:02:51.551,0:02:54.463
He spent every waking moment thinking about it,

0:02:54.463,0:02:58.736
and just days before he was to have his day in court,

0:02:58.736,0:03:01.057
he woke up in the morning,

0:03:01.057,0:03:03.194
doubled over in pain,

0:03:03.194,0:03:06.075
and died of a stress-related heart attack.

0:03:06.075,0:03:08.998
He was 35 years old.

0:03:08.998,0:03:13.321
So I was asked to work on Titus's case

0:03:13.321,0:03:16.584
because I'm a psychological scientist.

0:03:16.584,0:03:20.150
I study memory. I've studied memory for decades.

0:03:20.150,0:03:23.008
And if I meet somebody on an airplane

0:03:23.008,0:03:25.835
-- this happened on the way over to Scotland --

0:03:25.835,0:03:27.726
if I meet somebody on an airplane,

0:03:27.726,0:03:30.771
and we ask each other, "What do you do? What do you do?"

0:03:30.771,0:03:32.976
and I say "I study memory,"

0:03:32.976,0:03:35.602
they usually want to tell me how they have trouble remembering names,

0:03:35.602,0:03:38.309
or they've got a relative who's got Alzheimer's

0:03:38.309,0:03:40.481
or some kind of memory problem,

0:03:40.481,0:03:42.697
but I have to tell them

0:03:42.697,0:03:45.972
I don't study when people forget.

0:03:45.972,0:03:48.989
I study the opposite: when they remember,

0:03:48.989,0:03:51.957
when they remember things that didn't happen

0:03:51.957,0:03:54.063
or remember things that were different

0:03:54.063,0:03:56.064
from the way they really were.

0:03:56.064,0:03:59.807
I study false memories.

0:03:59.807,0:04:04.099
Unhappily, Steve Titus is not the only person

0:04:04.099,0:04:09.295
to be convicted based on somebody's false memory.

0:04:09.295,0:04:12.603
In one project in the United States,

0:04:12.603,0:04:14.855
information has been gathered

0:04:14.855,0:04:17.959
on 300 innocent people,

0:04:17.959,0:04:22.684
300 defendants who were convicted of crimes they didn't do.

0:04:22.684,0:04:28.006
They spent 10, 20, 30 years in prison for these crimes,

0:04:28.006,0:04:30.796
and now DNA testing has proven

0:04:30.796,0:04:33.327
that they are actually innocent.

0:04:33.327,0:04:35.848
And when those cases have been analyzed,

0:04:35.848,0:04:37.989
three quarters of them

0:04:37.989,0:04:43.006
are due to faulty memory, faulty eyewitness memory.

0:04:43.006,0:04:45.325
Well, why?

0:04:45.325,0:04:48.053
Like the jurors who convicted those innocent people

0:04:48.053,0:04:50.598
and the jurors who convicted Titus,

0:04:50.598,0:04:52.871
many people believe that memory

0:04:52.871,0:04:54.994
works like a recording device.

0:04:54.994,0:04:57.079
You just record the information,

0:04:57.079,0:04:59.039
then you call it up and play it back

0:04:59.039,0:05:02.525
when you want to answer questions or identify images.

0:05:02.525,0:05:04.811
But decades of work and psychology

0:05:04.811,0:05:07.903
has shown that this just isn't true.

0:05:07.903,0:05:10.333
Our memories are constructive.

0:05:10.333,0:05:12.625
They're reconstructive.

0:05:12.625,0:05:15.460
Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page:

0:05:15.460,0:05:20.028
you can go in there and change it, but so can other people.

0:05:20.028,0:05:25.530
I first started studying this constructive memory process

0:05:25.530,0:05:28.039
in the 1970s.

0:05:28.039,0:05:31.830
I did my experiments that involved showing people

0:05:31.830,0:05:34.811
simulated crimes and accidents

0:05:34.811,0:05:38.836
and asking them questions about what they remember.

0:05:38.836,0:05:42.575
In one study, we showed people a simulated accident

0:05:42.575,0:05:44.623
and we asked people,

0:05:44.623,0:05:46.964
how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?

0:05:46.964,0:05:48.951
And we asked other people,

0:05:48.951,0:05:52.240
how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?

0:05:52.240,0:05:54.873
And if we asked the leading "smashed" question,

0:05:54.873,0:05:58.174
the witnesses told us the cars were going faster,

0:05:58.174,0:06:02.355
and moreover, that leading "smashed" question

0:06:02.355,0:06:05.080
caused people to be more likely to tell us

0:06:05.080,0:06:08.451
that they saw broken glass in the accident scene

0:06:08.451,0:06:11.462
when there wasn't any broken glass at all.

0:06:11.462,0:06:15.182
In another study, we showed a simulated accident

0:06:15.182,0:06:18.533
where a car went through an intersection with a stop sign,

0:06:18.533,0:06:23.711
and if we asked a question that insinuated it was a yield sign,

0:06:23.711,0:06:27.253
many witnesses told us they remember seeing a yield sign

0:06:27.253,0:06:30.617
at the intersection, not a stop sign.

0:06:30.617,0:06:33.053
And you might be thinking, well, you know,

0:06:33.053,0:06:35.129
these are filmed events,

0:06:35.129,0:06:37.165
they are not particularly stressful.

0:06:37.165,0:06:39.191
Would the same kind of mistakes be made

0:06:39.191,0:06:41.543
with a really stressful event?

0:06:41.543,0:06:45.233
In a study we published just a few months ago,

0:06:45.233,0:06:47.537
we have an answer to this question,

0:06:47.537,0:06:49.733
because what was unusual about this study

0:06:49.733,0:06:55.933
is we arranged for people to have a very stressful experience.

0:06:55.933,0:06:58.162
The subjects in this study

0:06:58.162,0:07:00.411
were members of the U.S. military

0:07:00.411,0:07:04.405
who were undergoing a harrowing training exercise

0:07:04.405,0:07:07.510
to teach them what it's going to be like for them

0:07:07.510,0:07:11.797
if they are ever captured as prisoners of war.

0:07:11.797,0:07:14.227
And as part of this training exercise,

0:07:14.227,0:07:17.051
these soldiers are interrogated in an aggressive,

0:07:17.051,0:07:22.519
hostile, physically abusive fashion for 30 minutes

0:07:22.519,0:07:25.106
and later on they have to try to identify

0:07:25.106,0:07:28.682
the person who conducted that interrogation.

0:07:28.682,0:07:31.599
And when we feed them suggestive information

0:07:31.599,0:07:35.076
that insinuates it's a different person,

0:07:35.076,0:07:39.072
many of them misidentify their interrogator,

0:07:39.072,0:07:42.186
often identifying someone who doesn't even remotely

0:07:42.186,0:07:46.259
resemble the real interrogator.

0:07:46.259,0:07:48.560
And so what these studies are showing

0:07:48.560,0:07:51.682
is that when you feed people misinformation

0:07:51.682,0:07:55.800
about some experience that they may have had,

0:07:55.800,0:08:01.763
you can distort or contaminate or change their memory.

0:08:01.763,0:08:04.132
Well out there in the real world,

0:08:04.132,0:08:06.546
misinformation is everywhere.

0:08:06.546,0:08:08.583
We get misinformation

0:08:08.583,0:08:10.822
not only if we're questioned in a leading way,

0:08:10.822,0:08:13.116
but if we talk to other witnesses

0:08:13.116,0:08:15.749
who might consciously or inadvertently feed us

0:08:15.749,0:08:18.439
some erroneous information,

0:08:18.439,0:08:22.893
or if we see media coverage about some event we might have experienced,

0:08:22.893,0:08:25.962
all of these provide the opportunity

0:08:25.962,0:08:30.312
for this kind of contamination of our memory.

0:08:30.312,0:08:33.393
In the 1990s, we began to see

0:08:33.393,0:08:38.783
an even more extreme kind of memory problem.

0:08:38.783,0:08:41.910
Some patients were going into therapy with one problem

0:08:41.910,0:08:44.655
-- maybe they had depression, eating disorder --

0:08:44.655,0:08:47.546
and they were coming out of therapy

0:08:47.546,0:08:49.946
with a different problem.

0:08:49.946,0:08:53.971
Extreme memories for horrific brutalizations,

0:08:53.971,0:08:56.199
sometimes in Satanic rituals,

0:08:56.199,0:09:00.588
sometimes involving really bizarre and unusual elements.

0:09:00.588,0:09:03.142
One woman came out of psychotherapy

0:09:03.142,0:09:05.570
believing that she'd endured years

0:09:05.570,0:09:09.119
of ritualistic abuse, where she was forced into a pregnancy

0:09:09.119,0:09:12.007
and that the baby was cut from her belly.

0:09:12.007,0:09:14.398
But there were no physical scars

0:09:14.398,0:09:16.423
or any kind of physical evidence

0:09:16.423,0:09:19.304
that could have supported her story.

0:09:19.304,0:09:21.928
And when I began looking into these cases,

0:09:21.928,0:09:24.255
I was wondering,

0:09:24.255,0:09:26.583
where do these bizarre memories come from?

0:09:26.583,0:09:30.139
And what I found is that most of these situations

0:09:30.139,0:09:35.722
involved some particular form of psychotherapy.

0:09:35.722,0:09:37.983
And so I asked,

0:09:37.983,0:09:40.525
were some of the things going on in this psychotherapy

0:09:40.525,0:09:43.455
like the imagination exercises

0:09:43.455,0:09:45.896
or dream interpretation,

0:09:45.896,0:09:48.259
or in some cases hypnosis,

0:09:48.259,0:09:51.600
or in some cases exposure to false information,

0:09:51.600,0:09:54.357
were these leading these patients

0:09:54.357,0:09:57.031
to develop these very bizarre,

0:09:57.031,0:10:00.241
unlikely memories?

0:10:00.241,0:10:02.739
And I designed some experiments

0:10:02.739,0:10:06.903
to try to study the processes that were being used

0:10:06.903,0:10:09.096
in this psychotherapy so I could study

0:10:09.096,0:10:13.649
the development of these very rich false memories.

0:10:13.649,0:10:15.935
In one of the first studies we did,

0:10:15.935,0:10:18.487
we used suggestion,

0:10:18.487,0:10:23.212
a method inspired by the psychotherapy we saw in these cases,

0:10:23.212,0:10:25.368
we used this kind of suggestion

0:10:25.368,0:10:27.452
and planted a false memory

0:10:27.452,0:10:29.666
that when you were a kid, five or six years old,

0:10:29.666,0:10:32.163
you were lost in a shopping mall.

0:10:32.163,0:10:34.663
You were frightened. You were crying.

0:10:34.663,0:10:37.316
You were ultimately rescued by an elderly person

0:10:37.316,0:10:39.276
and reunited with the family.

0:10:39.276,0:10:41.637
And we succeeded in planting this memory

0:10:41.637,0:10:45.743
in the minds of about a quarter of our subjects.

0:10:45.743,0:10:48.410
And you might be thinking, well,

0:10:48.410,0:10:50.694
that's not particularly stressful.

0:10:50.694,0:10:52.910
But we and other investigators have planted

0:10:52.910,0:10:55.960
rich false memories of things that were

0:10:55.960,0:10:59.106
much more unusual and much more stressful.

0:10:59.106,0:11:01.675
So in a study done in Tennessee,

0:11:01.675,0:11:03.891
researchers planted the false memory

0:11:03.891,0:11:06.143
that when you were a kid, you nearly drowned

0:11:06.143,0:11:09.172
and had to be rescued by a life guard.

0:11:09.172,0:11:11.475
And in a study done in Canada,

0:11:11.475,0:11:13.723
researchers planted the false memory

0:11:13.723,0:11:15.874
that when you were a kid,

0:11:15.874,0:11:18.450
something as awful as being attacked by a vicious animal

0:11:18.450,0:11:20.509
happened to you,

0:11:20.509,0:11:23.761
succeeding with about half of their subjects.

0:11:23.761,0:11:26.056
And in study done in Italy,

0:11:26.056,0:11:28.295
researchers planted the false memory,

0:11:28.295,0:11:33.369
when you were a kid, you witnessed demonic possession.

0:11:33.369,0:11:35.867
I do want to add that it might seem

0:11:35.867,0:11:39.699
like we are traumatizing these experimental subjects

0:11:39.699,0:11:41.853
in the name of science,

0:11:41.853,0:11:45.645
but our studies have gone through thorough evaluation

0:11:45.645,0:11:48.142
by research ethics boards

0:11:48.142,0:11:50.484
that have made the decision

0:11:50.484,0:11:53.404
that the temporary discomfort that some

0:11:53.404,0:11:56.426
of these subjects might experience in these studies

0:11:56.426,0:12:00.295
is outweighed by the importance of this problem

0:12:00.295,0:12:03.648
for understanding memory processes

0:12:03.648,0:12:06.764
and the abuse of memory that is going on

0:12:06.764,0:12:09.611
in some places in the world.

0:12:09.611,0:12:12.480
Well, to my surprise,

0:12:12.480,0:12:16.278
when I published this work and began to speak out

0:12:16.278,0:12:19.973
against this particular brand of psychotherapy,

0:12:19.973,0:12:24.260
it created some pretty bad problems for me:

0:12:24.260,0:12:29.269
hostilities, primarily from the repressed memory therapists,

0:12:29.269,0:12:31.653
who felt under attack,

0:12:31.653,0:12:34.734
and by the patients whom they had influenced.

0:12:34.734,0:12:37.671
I had sometimes armed guards at speeches

0:12:37.671,0:12:40.090
that I was invited to give,

0:12:40.090,0:12:43.547
people trying to drum up letter-writing campaigns to get me fired.

0:12:43.547,0:12:46.790
But probably the worst

0:12:46.790,0:12:48.911
was I suspected that a woman

0:12:48.911,0:12:51.055
was innocent of abuse

0:12:51.055,0:12:53.801
that was being claimed by her grown daughter.

0:12:53.801,0:12:57.218
She accused her mother of sexual abuse

0:12:57.218,0:12:59.431
based on a repressed memory.

0:12:59.431,0:13:01.730
And this accusing daughter had actually allowed her story

0:13:01.730,0:13:05.394
to be filmed and presented in public places.

0:13:05.394,0:13:07.903
I was suspicious of this story,

0:13:07.903,0:13:10.203
and so I started to investigate,

0:13:10.203,0:13:13.979
and eventually found information that convinced me

0:13:13.979,0:13:16.975
that this mother was innocent.

0:13:16.975,0:13:19.706
I published and exposé on the case,

0:13:19.706,0:13:23.038
and a little while later, the accusing daughter

0:13:23.038,0:13:25.194
filed a lawsuit.

0:13:25.194,0:13:27.256
Even though I'd never mentioned her name,

0:13:27.256,0:13:31.618
she sued me for defamation and invasion of privacy.

0:13:31.618,0:13:33.911
And I went through nearly five years

0:13:33.911,0:13:40.925
of dealing with this messy, unpleasant litigation,

0:13:40.925,0:13:43.676
but finally, finally, it was over and I could really

0:13:43.676,0:13:47.315
get back to my work.

0:13:47.315,0:13:49.476
In the process, however, I became part

0:13:49.476,0:13:51.930
of a disturbing trend in America

0:13:51.930,0:13:54.237
where scientists are being sued

0:13:54.237,0:13:58.836
for simply speaking out on matters of great public controversy.

0:13:58.836,0:14:01.503
When I got back to my work, I asked this question:

0:14:01.503,0:14:04.377
if I plant a false memory in your mind,

0:14:04.377,0:14:06.622
does it have repercussions?

0:14:06.622,0:14:08.965
Does it affect your later thoughts,

0:14:08.965,0:14:11.022
your later behaviors?

0:14:11.022,0:14:13.060
Our first study planted a false memory

0:14:13.060,0:14:16.028
that you get sick as a child eating certain foods:

0:14:16.028,0:14:18.848
hard-boiled eggs, dill pickles, strawberry ice cream.

0:14:18.848,0:14:22.005
And we found that once we planted this false memory,

0:14:22.005,0:14:24.243
people didn't want to eat the foods as much

0:14:24.243,0:14:26.749
at an outdoor picnic.

0:14:26.749,0:14:30.161
The false memories aren't necessarily bad or unpleasant.

0:14:30.161,0:14:32.534
If we planted a warm, fuzzy memory

0:14:32.534,0:14:35.786
involving a healthy food like asparagus,

0:14:35.786,0:14:39.476
we could get people to want to eat asparagus more.

0:14:39.476,0:14:41.850
And so what these studies are showing

0:14:41.850,0:14:44.089
is that you can plant false memories

0:14:44.089,0:14:46.102
and they have repercussions

0:14:46.102,0:14:50.463
that affect behavior long after the memories take hold.

0:14:50.463,0:14:52.887
Well, along with this ability

0:14:52.887,0:14:55.081
to plant memories and control behavior

0:14:55.081,0:14:59.053
obviously comes some important ethical issues,

0:14:59.053,0:15:02.835
like, when should we use this mind technology?

0:15:02.835,0:15:06.073
And should we ever ban its use?

0:15:06.073,0:15:09.513
Therapists can't ethically plant false memories

0:15:09.513,0:15:11.500
in the mind of their patients

0:15:11.500,0:15:13.664
even if it would help the patient,

0:15:13.664,0:15:15.886
but there's nothing to stop a parent

0:15:15.886,0:15:19.735
from trying this out on their overweight or obese teenager.

0:15:19.735,0:15:22.034
And when I suggested this publicly,

0:15:22.034,0:15:25.471
it created an outcry again.

0:15:25.471,0:15:29.335
"There she goes. She's advocating that parents lie to their children."

0:15:29.335,0:15:32.134
Hello, Santa Claus.

0:15:32.134,0:15:36.891
(Laughter) (Applause)

0:15:36.891,0:15:41.308
I mean, another way to think about this is,

0:15:41.308,0:15:43.494
which would you rather have,

0:15:43.494,0:15:46.339
a kid with obesity, diabetes, shortened lifespan,

0:15:46.339,0:15:48.394
all the things that go with it,

0:15:48.394,0:15:51.133
or the kid with one little extra bit of false memory?

0:15:51.133,0:15:54.186
I know what I would choose for a kid of mine.

0:15:54.186,0:15:58.439
But maybe my work has made me different from most people.

0:15:58.439,0:16:00.396
Most people cherish their memories,

0:16:00.396,0:16:02.672
know that they represent their identity,

0:16:02.672,0:16:04.697
who they are, where they came from.

0:16:04.697,0:16:07.555
And I appreciate that. I feel that way too.

0:16:07.555,0:16:09.760
But I know from my work

0:16:09.760,0:16:13.872
how much fiction is already in there.

0:16:13.872,0:16:16.973
If I've learned anything from these decades

0:16:16.973,0:16:19.383
of working on these problems, it's this:

0:16:19.383,0:16:21.318
just because somebody tells you something

0:16:21.318,0:16:23.477
and they say it with confidence,

0:16:23.477,0:16:25.849
just because they say it with lots of detail,

0:16:25.849,0:16:28.608
just because they express emotion when they say it,

0:16:28.608,0:16:31.081
it doesn't mean that it really happened.

0:16:31.081,0:16:35.861
We can't reliably distinguish true memories from false memories.

0:16:35.861,0:16:39.007
We need independent corroboration.

0:16:39.007,0:16:41.376
Such a discovery has made me more tolerant

0:16:41.376,0:16:44.114
of the everyday memory mistakes

0:16:44.114,0:16:47.089
that my friends and family members make.

0:16:47.089,0:16:51.090
Such a discovery might have saved Steve Titus,

0:16:51.090,0:16:54.784
the man whose whole future was snatched away

0:16:54.784,0:16:57.714
by a false memory.

0:16:57.714,0:17:00.500
But meanwhile, we should all keep in mind,

0:17:00.500,0:17:02.505
we'd do well to,

0:17:02.505,0:17:05.468
that memory, like liberty,

0:17:05.468,0:17:08.947
is a fragile thing.

0:17:08.947,0:17:12.003
Thank you. Thank you.

0:17:12.003,0:17:15.397
Thank you. (Applause)

0:17:15.397,0:17:19.116
Thanks very much. (Applause)