astronomy

Geoffrey Loftus

Geoffrey Loftus is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Geoffrey Loftus rather than just read about it. In short: Geoffrey Loftus (born December 24, 1945) is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington. He specializes in memory and attention, and his most recent research focuses on face perception and hindsight bias.

Key takeaways

Geoffrey Loftus belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Geoffrey Loftus to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Geoffrey Loftus from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Geoffrey Loftus (born December 24, 1945) is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington. He specializes in memory and attention, and his most recent research focuses on face perception and hindsight bias. Loftus received a B.A. in experimental psychology from Brown University in 1967 and a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Stanford University in 1971, where his advisor was Richard C. Atkinson. He subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship under the mentorship of George Sperling in 1972, and he joined the faculty of the University of Washington shortly thereafter, where he has remained since. He taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 1995–1996 academic year. Geoff Loftus was married to fellow psychologist Elizabeth Loftus from 1968 to 1991. They are now divorced, but remain close colleagues. Geoff Loftus retired from full-time professorship in July, 2017, primarily to focus on his legal work. He still regularly testifies as an expert witness.

Legal work Increasingly, Loftus has been applying his scientific work to issues in human cognition that have arisen in legal cases. He has participated in one way or another in approximately 1,000 such cases. He has testified as an expert witness in perception, memory, statistics, and video-game behavior in approximately 495 civil and criminal cases. He has testified in superior courts in 13 U.S. states, United States federal courts in 11 different cities, a U.S. Court-martial at the U.S. Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy, and Canadian court in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His work has been cited by the Innocence Project in several of their cases, most notably that of Darrell Edwards. He has written articles on information loss in the human visual system associated with a witness's seeing someone from a specific distance (most relevant to the Innocence Project work) and visual hindsight bias.

References

External links Geoffrey Loftus's homepage Geoff Loftus's CV

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Geoffrey Loftus

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Geoffrey Loftus claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Geoffrey Loftus before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Geoffrey Loftus ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Geoffrey Loftus

In research: Geoffrey Loftus appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Geoffrey Loftus in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Geoffrey Loftus is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1945 births, 20th-century American psychologists, 21st-century American psychologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Geoffrey Loftus outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Geoffrey Loftus in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Geoffrey Loftus means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Geoffrey Loftus out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Geoffrey Loftus in simple terms?

Why does Geoffrey Loftus matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Geoffrey Loftus?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Geoffrey Loftus.