Lost in the mall technique

The "lost in the mall" technique or experiment[1] is a memory implantation technique used to demonstrate that confabulations about events that never took place – such as having been lost in a shopping mall as a child – can be created through suggestions made to experimental subjects that their older relative was present at the time. It was first developed by Elizabeth Loftus and her undergraduate student Jim Coan, as support for the thesis that it is possible to implant entirely false memories in people. The technique was developed in the context of the debate about the existence of repressed memories and false memory syndrome.[2]

  1. ^ Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Viking. pp. 191–192. ISBN 978-0-670-78593-3.
  2. ^ Loftus EF, Coan J., Pickrell, JE. Manufacturing false memories using bits of reality. In Reder, Lynne M., ed. (1996). Implicit Memory and Metacognition. Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 9780805818604.