Response to Commentaries

Although not denying the evidence that appropriately trained judges can distinguish true memories from false memories on the basis of qualitative differences, Bernstein and Loftus deny that these findings have any practical value and thus they conclude that the finding is of limited significance. is conclusion ignores a critical theoretical question at the heart of the memory controversy to which the evidence cited is highly relevant: What happens to the memory trace with each retrieval, especially when false or misleading information is suggested? The original position taken by Loftus was that the original memory trace is expunged and replaced by the new distorted memory, and is thus irretrievable. When the McClosky and Zaragoza (1985) research demonstrated that this was not the case, that the original memory trace had not been effaced and was retrievable under appropriate conditions, Loftus retreated to the position that one can never know how the memory is really represented and one must rely on recall in any case