Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial

Elizabeth Loftus · Katherine Ketcham

Jun 2015 · St. Martin's Press

About this ebook

"The study of memory had become my specialty, my passion. In the next few years I wrote dozens of papers about how memory works and how it fails, but unlike most researchers studying memory, my work kept reaching out into the real world. To what extent, I wondered, could a person's memory be shaped by suggestion? When people witness a serious automobile accident, how accurate is their recollection of the facts? If a witness is questioned by a police officer, will the manner of questioning alter the representation of the memory? Can memories be supplemented with additional, false information?"

The "passion" Loftus describes in the lines above led her to a teaching career at the University of Washington and, perhaps more importantly, into hundreds of courtrooms as an expert witness on the fallibility of eyewitness accounts. As she has explained in numerous trials, and as she convincingly argues in this absorbing book, eyewitness accounts can be and often are so distorted that they no longer resemble the truth.

About the author

Elizabeth Loftus is a professor of psychology and adjunct professor of law at the University of Washington in Seattle. She has published over 250 journal articles and 18 books, including The Myth of Repressed Memory; and Witness for the Defense. Loftus has served as president of the Western Psychological Association and has fulfilled leadership roles in numerous other organizations such as the American Psychological Association, Society of Experimental Psychologists, and American Psychological Society.

Katherine Ketcham is the co-author of Under the Influence, The Spirituality of Imperfection, Beyond the Influence, The Power of Empathy, and other books.