WEBVTT 00:00:00.509 --> 00:00:04.841 I'd like to tell you about a legal case that I worked on 00:00:04.841 --> 00:00:08.404 involving a man named Steve Titus. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:08.404 --> 00:00:11.433 Titus was a restaurant manager. 00:00:11.433 --> 00:00:15.523 He was 31 years old, he lived in Seattle, Washington, 00:00:15.523 --> 00:00:17.418 he was engaged to Gretchen, 00:00:17.418 --> 00:00:20.366 about to be married, she was the love of his life. 00:00:20.366 --> 00:00:22.650 And one night, the couple went out 00:00:22.650 --> 00:00:25.655 for a romantic restaurant meal. 00:00:25.655 --> 00:00:27.303 They were on their way home, 00:00:27.303 --> 00:00:30.253 and they were pulled over by a police officer. 00:00:30.253 --> 00:00:33.570 You see, Titus' car sort of resembled 00:00:33.570 --> 00:00:37.457 a car that was driven earlier in the evening 00:00:37.457 --> 00:00:40.863 by a man who raped a female hitchhiker, 00:00:40.863 --> 00:00:44.457 and Titus kind of resembled that rapist. 00:00:44.457 --> 00:00:47.035 So the police took a picture of Titus, 00:00:47.035 --> 00:00:49.802 they put it in a photo lineup, 00:00:49.802 --> 00:00:51.962 they later showed it to the victim, 00:00:51.962 --> 00:00:54.122 and she pointed to Titus' photo. 00:00:54.122 --> 00:00:57.743 She said, "That one's the closest." 00:00:57.743 --> 00:01:01.631 The police and the prosecution proceeded with a trial, 00:01:01.631 --> 00:01:04.972 and when Steve Titus was put on trial for rape, 00:01:04.972 --> 00:01:07.068 the rape victim got on the stand 00:01:07.068 --> 00:01:11.410 and said, "I'm absolutely positive that's the man." 00:01:11.410 --> 00:01:14.336 And Titus was convicted. 00:01:14.336 --> 00:01:16.310 He proclaimed his innocence, 00:01:16.310 --> 00:01:18.892 his family screamed at the jury, 00:01:18.892 --> 00:01:21.763 his fiancée collapsed on the floor sobbing, 00:01:21.763 --> 00:01:25.158 and Titus is taken away to jail. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:25.158 --> 00:01:28.616 So what would you do at this point? 00:01:28.616 --> 00:01:30.252 What would you do? 00:01:30.252 --> 00:01:34.020 Well, Titus lost complete faith in the legal system, 00:01:34.020 --> 00:01:36.052 and yet he got an idea. 00:01:36.052 --> 00:01:38.483 He called up the local newspaper, 00:01:38.483 --> 00:01:41.870 he got the interest of an investigative journalist, 00:01:41.870 --> 00:01:46.606 and that journalist actually found the real rapist, 00:01:46.606 --> 00:01:49.959 a man who ultimately confessed to this rape, 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:53.251 a man who was thought to have committed 50 rapes 00:01:53.251 --> 00:01:54.583 in that area, 00:01:54.583 --> 00:01:57.757 and when this information was given to the judge, 00:01:57.757 --> 00:02:00.693 the judge set Titus free. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:00.693 --> 00:02:04.724 And really, that's where this case should have ended. 00:02:04.724 --> 00:02:05.847 It should have been over. 00:02:05.847 --> 00:02:08.367 Titus should have thought of this as a horrible year, 00:02:08.367 --> 00:02:12.203 a year of accusation and trial, but over. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:12.203 --> 00:02:14.250 It didn't end that way. 00:02:14.250 --> 00:02:16.928 Titus was so bitter. 00:02:16.928 --> 00:02:19.508 He'd lost his job. He couldn't get it back. 00:02:19.508 --> 00:02:21.351 He lost his fiancée. 00:02:21.351 --> 00:02:24.257 She couldn't put up with his persistent anger. 00:02:24.257 --> 00:02:26.403 He lost his entire savings, 00:02:26.403 --> 00:02:29.261 and so he decided to file a lawsuit 00:02:29.261 --> 00:02:31.542 against the police and others whom he felt 00:02:31.542 --> 00:02:33.861 were responsible for his suffering. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:33.861 --> 00:02:38.574 And that's when I really started working on this case, 00:02:38.574 --> 00:02:40.535 trying to figure out 00:02:40.535 --> 00:02:42.609 how did that victim go from 00:02:42.609 --> 00:02:44.137 "That one's the closest" 00:02:44.137 --> 00:02:48.887 to "I'm absolutely positive that's the guy." NOTE Paragraph 00:02:48.887 --> 00:02:52.166 Well, Titus was consumed with his civil case. 00:02:52.166 --> 00:02:55.200 He spent every waking moment thinking about it, 00:02:55.200 --> 00:02:59.351 and just days before he was to have his day in court, 00:02:59.351 --> 00:03:01.570 he woke up in the morning, 00:03:01.570 --> 00:03:03.378 doubled over in pain, 00:03:03.378 --> 00:03:06.072 and died of a stress-related heart attack. 00:03:06.072 --> 00:03:09.259 He was 35 years old. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:09.259 --> 00:03:14.069 So I was asked to work on Titus' case 00:03:14.069 --> 00:03:16.584 because I'm a psychological scientist. 00:03:16.584 --> 00:03:20.411 I study memory. I've studied memory for decades. 00:03:20.411 --> 00:03:23.800 And if I meet somebody on an airplane -- 00:03:23.800 --> 00:03:25.896 this happened on the way over to Scotland -- 00:03:25.896 --> 00:03:27.726 if I meet somebody on an airplane, 00:03:27.726 --> 00:03:30.771 and we ask each other, "What do you do? What do you do?" 00:03:30.771 --> 00:03:32.222 and I say "I study memory," 00:03:32.222 --> 00:03:35.602 they usually want to tell me how they have trouble remembering names, 00:03:35.602 --> 00:03:38.401 or they've got a relative who's got Alzheimer's 00:03:38.416 --> 00:03:40.481 or some kind of memory problem, 00:03:40.481 --> 00:03:42.697 but I have to tell them 00:03:42.697 --> 00:03:46.202 I don't study when people forget. 00:03:46.202 --> 00:03:49.204 I study the opposite: when they remember, 00:03:49.204 --> 00:03:51.957 when they remember things that didn't happen 00:03:51.957 --> 00:03:53.922 or remember things that were different 00:03:53.922 --> 00:03:55.947 from the way they really were. 00:03:55.947 --> 00:04:00.683 I study false memories. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:00.683 --> 00:04:04.990 Unhappily, Steve Titus is not the only person 00:04:04.990 --> 00:04:09.295 to be convicted based on somebody's false memory. 00:04:09.295 --> 00:04:12.603 In one project in the United States, 00:04:12.603 --> 00:04:14.855 information has been gathered 00:04:14.855 --> 00:04:18.789 on 300 innocent people, 00:04:18.789 --> 00:04:22.684 300 defendants who were convicted of crimes they didn't do. 00:04:22.684 --> 00:04:27.984 They spent 10, 20, 30 years in prison for these crimes, 00:04:27.984 --> 00:04:30.411 and now DNA testing has proven 00:04:30.411 --> 00:04:33.327 that they are actually innocent. 00:04:33.327 --> 00:04:35.848 And when those cases have been analyzed, 00:04:35.848 --> 00:04:37.989 three quarters of them 00:04:37.989 --> 00:04:43.600 are due to faulty memory, faulty eyewitness memory. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:44.863 Well, why? 00:04:44.863 --> 00:04:48.314 Like the jurors who convicted those innocent people 00:04:48.314 --> 00:04:50.598 and the jurors who convicted Titus, 00:04:50.598 --> 00:04:52.839 many people believe that memory 00:04:52.839 --> 00:04:54.486 works like a recording device. 00:04:54.486 --> 00:04:56.743 You just record the information, 00:04:56.743 --> 00:04:59.390 then you call it up and play it back 00:04:59.390 --> 00:05:02.817 when you want to answer questions or identify images. 00:05:02.817 --> 00:05:04.980 But decades of work in psychology 00:05:04.980 --> 00:05:08.133 has shown that this just isn't true. 00:05:08.133 --> 00:05:10.563 Our memories are constructive. 00:05:10.563 --> 00:05:12.132 They're reconstructive. 00:05:12.132 --> 00:05:15.613 Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page: 00:05:15.613 --> 00:05:20.726 You can go in there and change it, but so can other people. 00:05:20.726 --> 00:05:25.975 I first started studying this constructive memory process 00:05:25.975 --> 00:05:28.390 in the 1970s. 00:05:28.390 --> 00:05:32.813 I did my experiments that involved showing people 00:05:32.813 --> 00:05:35.318 simulated crimes and accidents 00:05:35.318 --> 00:05:38.836 and asking them questions about what they remember. 00:05:38.836 --> 00:05:42.775 In one study, we showed people a simulated accident 00:05:42.775 --> 00:05:44.053 and we asked people, 00:05:44.053 --> 00:05:46.917 how fast were the cars going when they hit each other? 00:05:46.917 --> 00:05:48.551 And we asked other people, 00:05:48.551 --> 00:05:52.240 how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other? 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:55.242 And if we asked the leading "smashed" question, 00:05:55.242 --> 00:05:58.527 the witnesses told us the cars were going faster, 00:05:58.527 --> 00:06:02.524 and moreover, that leading "smashed" question 00:06:02.524 --> 00:06:05.384 caused people to be more likely to tell us 00:06:05.384 --> 00:06:08.451 that they saw broken glass in the accident scene 00:06:08.451 --> 00:06:12.230 when there wasn't any broken glass at all. 00:06:12.230 --> 00:06:15.119 In another study, we showed a simulated accident 00:06:15.119 --> 00:06:18.779 where a car went through an intersection with a stop sign, 00:06:18.779 --> 00:06:23.711 and if we asked a question that insinuated it was a yield sign, 00:06:23.711 --> 00:06:27.560 many witnesses told us they remember seeing a yield sign 00:06:27.560 --> 00:06:31.017 at the intersection, not a stop sign. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:31.017 --> 00:06:33.206 And you might be thinking, well, you know, 00:06:33.206 --> 00:06:34.529 these are filmed events, 00:06:34.529 --> 00:06:36.457 they are not particularly stressful. 00:06:36.457 --> 00:06:39.191 Would the same kind of mistakes be made 00:06:39.191 --> 00:06:42.142 with a really stressful event? 00:06:42.142 --> 00:06:45.233 In a study we published just a few months ago, 00:06:45.233 --> 00:06:47.537 we have an answer to this question, 00:06:47.537 --> 00:06:50.301 because what was unusual about this study 00:06:50.301 --> 00:06:55.933 is we arranged for people to have a very stressful experience. 00:06:55.933 --> 00:06:58.162 The subjects in this study 00:06:58.162 --> 00:07:00.672 were members of the U.S. military 00:07:00.672 --> 00:07:05.097 who were undergoing a harrowing training exercise 00:07:05.097 --> 00:07:07.879 to teach them what it's going to be like for them 00:07:07.879 --> 00:07:11.797 if they are ever captured as prisoners of war. 00:07:11.797 --> 00:07:14.227 And as part of this training exercise, 00:07:14.227 --> 00:07:17.756 these soldiers are interrogated in an aggressive, 00:07:17.756 --> 00:07:22.842 hostile, physically abusive fashion for 30 minutes 00:07:22.842 --> 00:07:25.659 and later on they have to try to identify 00:07:25.659 --> 00:07:28.682 the person who conducted that interrogation. 00:07:28.682 --> 00:07:32.505 And when we feed them suggestive information 00:07:32.505 --> 00:07:35.283 that insinuates it's a different person, 00:07:35.283 --> 00:07:39.320 many of them misidentify their interrogator, 00:07:39.320 --> 00:07:43.155 often identifying someone who doesn't even remotely 00:07:43.155 --> 00:07:46.259 resemble the real interrogator. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:46.259 --> 00:07:48.560 And so what these studies are showing 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:52.420 is that when you feed people misinformation 00:07:52.420 --> 00:07:55.800 about some experience that they may have had, 00:07:55.800 --> 00:08:01.455 you can distort or contaminate or change their memory. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:01.455 --> 00:08:03.655 Well out there in the real world, 00:08:03.655 --> 00:08:06.546 misinformation is everywhere. 00:08:06.546 --> 00:08:07.906 We get misinformation 00:08:07.906 --> 00:08:10.822 not only if we're questioned in a leading way, 00:08:10.822 --> 00:08:13.269 but if we talk to other witnesses 00:08:13.269 --> 00:08:16.302 who might consciously or inadvertently feed us 00:08:16.302 --> 00:08:18.439 some erroneous information, 00:08:18.439 --> 00:08:23.169 or if we see media coverage about some event we might have experienced, 00:08:23.169 --> 00:08:25.962 all of these provide the opportunity 00:08:25.962 --> 00:08:30.312 for this kind of contamination of our memory. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:30.312 --> 00:08:34.100 In the 1990s, we began to see 00:08:34.100 --> 00:08:38.783 an even more extreme kind of memory problem. 00:08:38.783 --> 00:08:41.879 Some patients were going into therapy with one problem -- 00:08:41.879 --> 00:08:44.793 maybe they had depression, an eating disorder -- 00:08:44.793 --> 00:08:47.546 and they were coming out of therapy 00:08:47.546 --> 00:08:50.207 with a different problem. 00:08:50.207 --> 00:08:53.908 Extreme memories for horrific brutalizations, 00:08:53.908 --> 00:08:55.891 sometimes in satanic rituals, 00:08:55.891 --> 00:09:00.588 sometimes involving really bizarre and unusual elements. 00:09:00.588 --> 00:09:03.142 One woman came out of psychotherapy 00:09:03.142 --> 00:09:05.570 believing that she'd endured years 00:09:05.570 --> 00:09:09.472 of ritualistic abuse, where she was forced into a pregnancy 00:09:09.472 --> 00:09:12.038 and that the baby was cut from her belly. 00:09:12.038 --> 00:09:14.397 But there were no physical scars 00:09:14.397 --> 00:09:16.423 or any kind of physical evidence 00:09:16.423 --> 00:09:19.304 that could have supported her story. 00:09:19.304 --> 00:09:22.312 And when I began looking into these cases, 00:09:22.312 --> 00:09:23.762 I was wondering, 00:09:23.762 --> 00:09:26.090 where do these bizarre memories come from? 00:09:26.090 --> 00:09:30.477 And what I found is that most of these situations 00:09:30.477 --> 00:09:35.968 involved some particular form of psychotherapy. 00:09:35.968 --> 00:09:37.567 And so I asked, 00:09:37.567 --> 00:09:40.955 were some of the things going on in this psychotherapy -- 00:09:40.955 --> 00:09:43.839 like the imagination exercises 00:09:43.839 --> 00:09:45.896 or dream interpretation, 00:09:45.896 --> 00:09:48.028 or in some cases hypnosis, 00:09:48.028 --> 00:09:51.846 or in some cases exposure to false information -- 00:09:51.846 --> 00:09:54.633 were these leading these patients 00:09:54.633 --> 00:09:57.310 to develop these very bizarre, 00:09:57.310 --> 00:10:00.241 unlikely memories? 00:10:00.241 --> 00:10:02.400 And I designed some experiments 00:10:02.400 --> 00:10:07.425 to try to study the processes that were being used 00:10:07.425 --> 00:10:10.498 in this psychotherapy so I could study 00:10:10.498 --> 00:10:14.049 the development of these very rich false memories. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:14.049 --> 00:10:16.457 In one of the first studies we did, 00:10:16.457 --> 00:10:18.810 we used suggestion, 00:10:18.810 --> 00:10:22.873 a method inspired by the psychotherapy we saw in these cases, 00:10:22.873 --> 00:10:24.983 we used this kind of suggestion 00:10:24.983 --> 00:10:26.835 and planted a false memory 00:10:26.835 --> 00:10:29.912 that when you were a kid, five or six years old, 00:10:29.912 --> 00:10:32.163 you were lost in a shopping mall. 00:10:32.163 --> 00:10:34.663 You were frightened. You were crying. 00:10:34.663 --> 00:10:37.177 You were ultimately rescued by an elderly person 00:10:37.177 --> 00:10:39.029 and reunited with the family. 00:10:39.029 --> 00:10:41.637 And we succeeded in planting this memory 00:10:41.637 --> 00:10:45.743 in the minds of about a quarter of our subjects. 00:10:45.743 --> 00:10:47.748 And you might be thinking, well, 00:10:47.748 --> 00:10:50.094 that's not particularly stressful. 00:10:50.094 --> 00:10:53.463 But we and other investigators have planted 00:10:53.463 --> 00:10:56.221 rich false memories of things that were 00:10:56.221 --> 00:10:59.136 much more unusual and much more stressful. 00:10:59.136 --> 00:11:01.675 So in a study done in Tennessee, 00:11:01.675 --> 00:11:04.091 researchers planted the false memory 00:11:04.091 --> 00:11:06.665 that when you were a kid, you nearly drowned 00:11:06.665 --> 00:11:09.172 and had to be rescued by a life guard. 00:11:09.172 --> 00:11:11.475 And in a study done in Canada, 00:11:11.475 --> 00:11:13.999 researchers planted the false memory 00:11:13.999 --> 00:11:15.227 that when you were a kid, 00:11:15.227 --> 00:11:18.957 something as awful as being attacked by a vicious animal 00:11:18.957 --> 00:11:20.339 happened to you, 00:11:20.339 --> 00:11:23.761 succeeding with about half of their subjects. 00:11:23.761 --> 00:11:26.113 And in a study done in Italy, 00:11:26.113 --> 00:11:28.771 researchers planted the false memory, 00:11:28.771 --> 00:11:33.983 when you were a kid, you witnessed demonic possession. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:33.983 --> 00:11:36.190 I do want to add that it might seem 00:11:36.190 --> 00:11:39.929 like we are traumatizing these experimental subjects 00:11:39.929 --> 00:11:41.529 in the name of science, 00:11:41.529 --> 00:11:46.167 but our studies have gone through thorough evaluation 00:11:46.167 --> 00:11:48.142 by research ethics boards 00:11:48.142 --> 00:11:50.484 that have made the decision 00:11:50.484 --> 00:11:53.557 that the temporary discomfort that some 00:11:53.557 --> 00:11:56.641 of these subjects might experience in these studies 00:11:56.641 --> 00:12:00.541 is outweighed by the importance of this problem 00:12:00.541 --> 00:12:03.648 for understanding memory processes 00:12:03.648 --> 00:12:06.994 and the abuse of memory that is going on 00:12:06.994 --> 00:12:10.287 in some places in the world. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:10.287 --> 00:12:13.325 Well, to my surprise, 00:12:13.325 --> 00:12:16.754 when I published this work and began to speak out 00:12:16.754 --> 00:12:20.649 against this particular brand of psychotherapy, 00:12:20.649 --> 00:12:24.629 it created some pretty bad problems for me: 00:12:24.629 --> 00:12:29.530 hostilities, primarily from the repressed memory therapists, 00:12:29.530 --> 00:12:31.206 who felt under attack, 00:12:31.206 --> 00:12:34.734 and by the patients whom they had influenced. 00:12:34.734 --> 00:12:37.671 I had sometimes armed guards at speeches 00:12:37.671 --> 00:12:39.576 that I was invited to give, 00:12:39.576 --> 00:12:43.793 people trying to drum up letter-writing campaigns to get me fired. 00:12:43.793 --> 00:12:45.774 But probably the worst 00:12:45.774 --> 00:12:48.541 was I suspected that a woman 00:12:48.541 --> 00:12:50.965 was innocent of abuse 00:12:50.965 --> 00:12:53.801 that was being claimed by her grown daughter. 00:12:53.801 --> 00:12:57.218 She accused her mother of sexual abuse 00:12:57.218 --> 00:12:59.077 based on a repressed memory. 00:12:59.077 --> 00:13:01.960 And this accusing daughter had actually allowed her story 00:13:01.960 --> 00:13:05.394 to be filmed and presented in public places. 00:13:05.394 --> 00:13:07.903 I was suspicious of this story, 00:13:07.903 --> 00:13:10.203 and so I started to investigate, 00:13:10.203 --> 00:13:14.686 and eventually found information that convinced me 00:13:14.686 --> 00:13:16.975 that this mother was innocent. 00:13:16.975 --> 00:13:19.936 I published an exposé on the case, 00:13:19.936 --> 00:13:23.380 and a little while later, the accusing daughter 00:13:23.380 --> 00:13:24.901 filed a lawsuit. 00:13:24.901 --> 00:13:27.256 Even though I'd never mentioned her name, 00:13:27.256 --> 00:13:31.618 she sued me for defamation and invasion of privacy. 00:13:31.618 --> 00:13:34.341 And I went through nearly five years 00:13:34.341 --> 00:13:40.893 of dealing with this messy, unpleasant litigation, 00:13:40.893 --> 00:13:44.567 but finally, finally, it was over and I could really 00:13:44.567 --> 00:13:46.991 get back to my work. 00:13:46.991 --> 00:13:49.476 In the process, however, I became part 00:13:49.476 --> 00:13:52.130 of a disturbing trend in America 00:13:52.130 --> 00:13:54.237 where scientists are being sued 00:13:54.237 --> 00:13:58.836 for simply speaking out on matters of great public controversy. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:58.836 --> 00:14:02.194 When I got back to my work, I asked this question: 00:14:02.194 --> 00:14:04.592 if I plant a false memory in your mind, 00:14:04.592 --> 00:14:06.436 does it have repercussions? 00:14:06.436 --> 00:14:08.395 Does it affect your later thoughts, 00:14:08.395 --> 00:14:10.496 your later behaviors? 00:14:10.496 --> 00:14:12.523 Our first study planted a false memory 00:14:12.523 --> 00:14:15.849 that you got sick as a child eating certain foods: 00:14:15.849 --> 00:14:18.848 hard-boiled eggs, dill pickles, strawberry ice cream. 00:14:18.848 --> 00:14:22.038 And we found that once we planted this false memory, 00:14:22.038 --> 00:14:24.489 people didn't want to eat the foods as much 00:14:24.489 --> 00:14:26.749 at an outdoor picnic. 00:14:26.749 --> 00:14:30.622 The false memories aren't necessarily bad or unpleasant. 00:14:30.622 --> 00:14:32.980 If we planted a warm, fuzzy memory 00:14:32.980 --> 00:14:36.001 involving a healthy food like asparagus, 00:14:36.001 --> 00:14:39.476 we could get people to want to eat asparagus more. 00:14:39.476 --> 00:14:41.850 And so what these studies are showing 00:14:41.850 --> 00:14:43.965 is that you can plant false memories 00:14:43.965 --> 00:14:45.378 and they have repercussions 00:14:45.378 --> 00:14:50.463 that affect behavior long after the memories take hold. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:50.463 --> 00:14:52.887 Well, along with this ability 00:14:52.887 --> 00:14:55.810 to plant memories and control behavior 00:14:55.810 --> 00:14:59.991 obviously come some important ethical issues, 00:14:59.991 --> 00:15:03.050 like, when should we use this mind technology? 00:15:03.050 --> 00:15:06.730 And should we ever ban its use? 00:15:06.730 --> 00:15:09.513 Therapists can't ethically plant false memories 00:15:09.513 --> 00:15:11.100 in the mind of their patients 00:15:11.100 --> 00:15:13.664 even if it would help the patient, 00:15:13.664 --> 00:15:15.286 but there's nothing to stop a parent 00:15:15.286 --> 00:15:19.735 from trying this out on their overweight or obese teenager. 00:15:19.735 --> 00:15:22.340 And when I suggested this publicly, 00:15:22.340 --> 00:15:25.686 it created an outcry again. 00:15:25.686 --> 00:15:29.719 "There she goes. She's advocating that parents lie to their children." NOTE Paragraph 00:15:29.719 --> 00:15:31.964 Hello, Santa Claus. (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:15:31.964 --> 00:15:41.461 I mean, another way to think about this is, 00:15:41.461 --> 00:15:43.494 which would you rather have, 00:15:43.494 --> 00:15:46.523 a kid with obesity, diabetes, shortened lifespan, 00:15:46.523 --> 00:15:48.055 all the things that go with it, 00:15:48.055 --> 00:15:51.071 or a kid with one little extra bit of false memory? 00:15:51.071 --> 00:15:54.462 I know what I would choose for a kid of mine. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:54.462 --> 00:15:58.439 But maybe my work has made me different from most people. 00:15:58.439 --> 00:16:00.518 Most people cherish their memories, 00:16:00.518 --> 00:16:02.672 know that they represent their identity, 00:16:02.672 --> 00:16:04.697 who they are, where they came from. 00:16:04.697 --> 00:16:07.555 And I appreciate that. I feel that way too. 00:16:07.555 --> 00:16:09.760 But I know from my work 00:16:09.760 --> 00:16:14.241 how much fiction is already in there. 00:16:14.241 --> 00:16:16.973 If I've learned anything from these decades 00:16:16.973 --> 00:16:19.383 of working on these problems, it's this: 00:16:19.383 --> 00:16:21.594 just because somebody tells you something 00:16:21.594 --> 00:16:23.169 and they say it with confidence, 00:16:23.169 --> 00:16:25.849 just because they say it with lots of detail, 00:16:25.849 --> 00:16:28.608 just because they express emotion when they say it, 00:16:28.608 --> 00:16:31.810 it doesn't mean that it really happened. 00:16:31.810 --> 00:16:35.675 We can't reliably distinguish true memories from false memories. 00:16:35.675 --> 00:16:39.223 We need independent corroboration. 00:16:39.223 --> 00:16:42.313 Such a discovery has made me more tolerant 00:16:42.313 --> 00:16:44.452 of the everyday memory mistakes 00:16:44.452 --> 00:16:47.366 that my friends and family members make. 00:16:47.366 --> 00:16:51.900 Such a discovery might have saved Steve Titus, 00:16:51.900 --> 00:16:55.476 the man whose whole future was snatched away 00:16:55.476 --> 00:16:57.714 by a false memory. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:57.714 --> 00:17:00.530 But meanwhile, we should all keep in mind, 00:17:00.530 --> 00:17:02.166 we'd do well to, 00:17:02.166 --> 00:17:06.037 that memory, like liberty, 00:17:06.037 --> 00:17:09.731 is a fragile thing. 00:17:09.731 --> 00:17:12.669 Thank you. Thank you. 00:17:12.669 --> 00:17:15.397 Thank you. (Applause) 00:17:15.397 --> 00:17:19.116 Thanks very much. (Applause)