Lost in the Mall Technique

The lost in the mall technique, sometimes called the lost in the mall experiment, is a memory-implantation technique used to demonstrate that confabulated memories of events that never actually took place, such as having been lost in a shopping mall as a child, can be created in a person through suggestion, specifically by telling the subject that an older relative was present and witnessed the fictional event. The technique was first developed by the psychologist Elizabeth Loftus together with her undergraduate student Jim Coan, to support the broader thesis that entirely false memories can be implanted in people, and it was developed within the context of the wider debate over the existence of repressed memories and false memory syndrome.