Mather explained how a concept called the “availability heuristic” helps explain part of the phenomenon of false memories. “The availability heuristic allows us to kind of base our belief in the confidence of what we’re retrieving on how easily we recalled it.”
(Michele Blood – LifeZette) Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation of sexual assault at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh (shown above right; Ford is at left) could stem from a false memory, Dr. Robert Mather told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham Monday night on “The Ingraham Angle.”
“There’s volumes of research that show, going back to [Dr. Elizabeth] Loftus’ work, that you can implant memories in children, such as being lost in the mall,” said Mather, who is a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Cognitive psychologist and University of California, Irvine professor Elizabeth Loftus is a respected pioneer in false memory research.
She has studied the phenomenon for decades.
“Sometimes people are very, very certain and wrong,” Loftus told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in a recent interview, which Yahoo News published late last week.