How Many of Your Memories are False?

August 2012

A few years ago, the actor Alan Alda visited a group of memory researchers at UC Irvine for a TV show he was making. During a picnic lunch, one of the scientists offered Alda a hard-boiled egg. He turned it down, explaining that as a child he had made himself sick eating too many eggs. In fact, this had never happened, yet Alda believed it was real. How so? The egg incident was a false memory planted by Elizabeth Loftus, Distinguished Professor in the School of Social Ecology. Before the visit, Loftus had sent Alda a questionnaire about his food preferences and personality. She later told him that a computer analysis of his answers had revealed some facts about his childhood, including that he once made himself sick eating too many eggs. There was no such analysis but it was enough to convince Alda.