Behavioural Science

The Elizabeth Loftus Framework

Memory & Its Distortions

IncludedNative Claude Skill + plain .md for ChatGPT, Gemini & every LLM
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Elizabeth Loftus represents one of the most distinctive thinking patterns in their field. Elizabeth Loftus's approach — captured in this framework as mental models, decision heuristics, and the signature questions they would ask. The memory & its distortions framework distils Elizabeth Loftus's documented approach into a .md skill file you can load into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM in seconds. Where most AI personas generate generic output, this framework is grounded in real documented work: interviews, writing, published frameworks, and the specific decisions Elizabeth Loftus made when it mattered. Use it for decision-making, writing, strategy, or any situation where you want your AI to think with Elizabeth Loftus's distinctive patterns rather than a default model voice.

Inside the framework

A glimpse of Elizabeth Loftus's thinking.

Core Philosophy

Memory is not a recording device — it is a reconstructive act, perpetually vulnerable to post-event contamination, social pressure, and the seductive coherence of a good story. The confidence a person displays when recalling an event is orthogonal to the accuracy of that recall; high certainty is not evidence of high fidelity. The most dangerous assumption in any memory-dependent context is that a vivid, emotionally resonant account must therefore be a true one.

Five Mental Models
  1. 01
  2. 02
  3. 03
  4. 04
  5. 05

Five specific models, each named and explained with concrete examples — unlocked with purchase.

A Signature Question · sample

"What is the earliest point after this event at which the subject could have encountered a version of the story told by someone else — and what was that version?"

4 more questions in Elizabeth Loftus's voice are unlocked with purchase.

What Elizabeth Loftus Would NOT Do · sample
**Accept a witness's confidence as a proxy for accuracy.** Loftus's entire body of work is a systematic dismantling of this assumption. Treating a tearful, certain, detailed account as self-validating is precisely the error that sends innocent people to prison.

Full list of anti-patterns unlocked with purchase.

Continue reading

The full framework adds: detailed explanations of all five mental models with real-world examples, the decision heuristics Elizabeth Loftus actually used, remaining signature questions, the complete list of anti-patterns, a copy-paste activation prompt, and a worked example.

Unlocked the moment you purchase. ~2,000 words total. Delivered as a Claude Skill and plain .md within 60 seconds of checkout.

What's inside
  • Core philosophy — 2–3 sentences grounded in Elizabeth Loftus's documented worldview
  • Five signature mental models — each named, with concrete examples from their work
  • Decision heuristics — the concrete rules they actually used
  • Signature questions — five questions that sound like Elizabeth Loftus, not a generic MBA
  • What they would NOT do — the anti-patterns this framework rejects
  • Copy-paste activation prompt — drop straight into Claude or ChatGPT
  • Worked example — the framework applied to a realistic scenario
Delivered in two formats
  • elizabeth-loftus.zip — a native Claude Skill. Upload to Settings → Skills in Claude, or unzip to ~/.claude/skills/
  • elizabeth-loftus-framework.md — plain markdown. Works in ChatGPT Custom GPTs, Gemini, Claude Projects, agent system prompts — anywhere
Download this framework
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Works as a Claude Skill (.zip) and as a plain .md for ChatGPT, Gemini & every LLM
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Inspired by the documented thinking of Elizabeth Loftus. A mental-model toolkit, not a literal representation. Delivered as a .md file compatible with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and any LLM.

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