Memory and Eyewitness Guru and Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus presented the preliminary results of recent false memory experiments today in Denver at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The research demonstrates that police interrogators and people investigating sexual-abuse allegations must be careful not to plant suggestions into their subjects, said University of California-Irvine psychologist Elizabeth Loftus....

Loftus said some people may be so suggestible that they could be convinced they were responsible for crimes they didn't commit. In interviews, "much of what goes on -- unwittingly -- is contamination," she said.

The news media's power of suggestion also can leave a false impression, Loftus said. "During the Washington sniper attacks, everyone reported seeing a white van," she said. "Where did it come from? The whole country was seeing white vans."

One of Loftus' studies involved asking people about having hugged Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. Only Bugs Bunny is not a Disney character so it couldn't have happened.

In the Bugs Bunny study, Loftus talked with subjects about their childhoods and asked not only whether they saw someone dressed up as the character, but also whether they hugged his furry body and stroked his velvety ears. In subsequent interviews, 36 percent of the subjects recalled the cartoon rabbit.

In another study, Loftus suggested frog-kissing incidents that 15 percent of the group later recalled.

"It is sensory details that people use to distinguish their memories," said Loftus, who has conducted false memories experiments on 20,000 subjects over 25 years. "If you imbue the story with them, you'll disrupt this memory process. It's almost a recipe to get people to remember things that aren't true.

Another presenter was Harvard pychologist Richard McNally, who

tested 10 people who said they had been abducted, physically examined and sexually molested by space aliens.

Researchers tape-recorded the subjects talking about their memories. When the recordings were played back later, the purported abductees perspired and their heart rates jumped.

McNally said three of the 10 subjects showed physical reactions "at least as great" as people suffering post traumatic stress disorder from war, crime, rape and other violent incidents. "This underscores the power of emotional belief," McNally said.