False Memories

[Scylla]

Sorry to just jump in, but I was just reading how actually ALL memory is false and I can’t resist.

It’s not structured like videotape, or bitmap.

It is really just a jumble of loose association, and is easily contaminated by other associations.

On top of that, your mind takes some real liberties with “Data Compression.” i.e you don’t actually remember an event, you really call up generic images of similar events and their associative baggage. You then plug-in a couple of specifics, and there is your memory. Very little resemblance to what actually occured in terms of specifics, but quite workable for getting you through the day.

Here’s another example: Can you remember what you did yesterday? How about the day before? Before that? How far back can you go? If you go “Ok thirty two days ago was a Thursday so I must have gone to work,” then your cheating. How far can you actually remember?

Most people can’t make it two weeks.

It’s like the local cache in your web-browser , after a time your brain just wipes it out.

If something happens and you decide you need that memory, it just chucks together your average concept of “day” throws in one or two specific events, and creates your remebered day out of whole cloth.

This happens to everybody all the time.

False memories are the rule, not the exception. Scary but true.

Martin Pring explains this pretty well in Society of Mind which just came in the mail today (which is why I can’t resist.)

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Often wrong… NEVER in doubt

[David_B]

Originally posted by Felice:
I’ll bet the False Memory Foundation would.

Yeah, but they don’t have a local office. Besides, skeptics groups don’t make enough money to pay very well. < sigh >

Loftus, I understand, gets paid quite well to testify on their behalf in ‘recovered memory’ cases.

And other memory cases as well. I know she was going to testify in one case where I thought it was kind of a seedy defendant and case (can’t recall any details other than that). But I guess I have to admire her consistency.

I suppose all we can do support Cecil’s crusade.

That’s right! And fight to get moderators paid!

Scylla said:

Most people can’t make it two weeks.

Hell, I’m lucky if I can remember two hours. Just ask my wife, whatshername.

[SwimmingRiddles]

Originally posted by Felice:
Anybody want more references on the subject? I’ve got lots. I can go into research on the efficacy of hypnosis on memory, too, if anybody cares.

Efficany as in legitimacy? I care!

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One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. -Nietzche

[Felice]

Okay, Swimmer, I started a new thread to focus on hypnosis.

[system]

I don’t want this thread to die without pointing out that Loftus’ work has been subjected to a great deal of criticism by her peers. There are articles which criticize her methodology and the conclusions reached thereon, and it doesn’t take too much searching on the 'net or through the professional journals to find them.

For example, Linda Meyer Williams, (1994), has within the last decade done research which at least challenges the “False Memory” theorists, at least in instances where the memory concerns past abuse.

Ms. William’s research has demonstrated that repression of memory about abuse is a valid phenomena and in many cases also includes a high accuracy rate of recall for specific details of the abuse. (Peripheral details of recall contained a lesser degree of accuracy.) William’s study was based on interviews with 129 women with highly authenticated documented histories of sexual abuse dating in the early 1970’s who were reinterviewed as adults to check their recall of the abuse. (Williams, 1995)

http://inpsyte.asarian-host.org/williams.htm

I found two excerpts of articles which discuss and discount to some degree the “false memory” conclusions:

[quote}Fox, R. E. (1995). The rape of psychotherapy. Professional Psychology:
Research and Practice, 26, 147-155.

In this general review of the current and increasingly dismal state of psychotherapy in the U.S., the author, former president of the American Psychological Association, discusses the controversies surrounding “so-called false memories” recovered in therapy through several case reports. While he is concerned that the controversy puts psychology in a negative public light, he also attests to some striking anecdotal evidence on behalf of those who support the therapeutic recovery of memories of sexual and ritual child abuse.

Fraser, S. (1994, March). Freud’s final seduction. Saturday Night, 109, 18-21.

Sylvia Fraser argues that the power of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation flows from the continued denial by parents and others of the problem of child abuse which also led Freud to his seduction theory. The author speaks from the perspective she described in her own well-received story of her repressed
incest memories: My Father’s House: A Memoir of Incest and Healing.[/quote]

http://maple.lemoyne.edu/~hevern/nr-mem.html

I spent only about fifteen minutes looking, having had my memory of criticism of Loftus triggered by the discussion in this thread. There’s a lot more out there. There’s no question that she has done some significant work in the field, but no one should walk away from this thread with the idea that that work is definitive.

-Melin

[Polycarp]

So what you’re saying, Melin, is that we should be skeptical of such “recovered memories” but not totally incredulous?

[David_B]

Her work has certainly been criticized, but too often it’s come from places like the last cite you gave – people with their own agendas (pro-recovered memory) to push. People who claim that it’s all based in denial. Well, I have argued this before, and nobody I know is in any denial that child abuse is real – just that using recovered memory therapy will get real memories! I have been accused by these same people of being part of the satanic conspiracy, being a molester and abuser, etc. Any parent who maintains their innocence is a “denier.” It’s the old catch-22 – if you deny you’re an abuser, then you’re an abuser.

I’ll check out those other links when I have more time to consider them. I will say that in all the research I have personally done, I have never come across anything that invalidated Loftus’ work. But I have found lots of support.

[David_B]

Ok, I had more time than I thought.

I checked the first link, which is actually an essay about the study, but not the study itself. In reading it, I do vaguely recall the study, and I also recall it had flaws. But without being able to (re)read the study, I can’t say much more about it. I know that isn’t much to go on.

But in checking the rest of the site, I see the first article listed after that essay is by Bennett Braun! You can imagine that this lowers the respectability quotient significantly for that site in my eyes. And the essay was written by the person who owns the site…

[andros]

I’ll bite. Who’s Bennett Braun?

[andros]

Oh, and Felice, while you may not be up on current memory literature, you seem to have a psych background (right?)–do you have any idea how Loftus is regarded in the psychological community as a whole?

Seems like in the psych world, either people are considered cranks or their detractors are. Which is Loftus?

-andros-

[David_B]

Check the thread on Repressed Memories: http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000832.html

There are a number of links in the OP to articles I’ve written about Braun (and later a posting of the latest article, which hasn’t made it to the web yet).

As far as I know, Loftus is highly regarded in the psychological community – except, of course, by those who are sticking by recovered memory therapy.

[Felice]

A very good point, Melin, and thank you for looking up these links. To me the most interesting article was excerpts from Williams’ work interviewing 129 women with documented child sexual abuse histories. Five of the women report forgetting and later recalling the abuse events, and their recall of the event is substantially consistent with the documented case.

This examination of recovered memories of child sexual abuse relied on a small sample and thus **the statistical analyses must be considered preliminary. ** But these findings are important because they are based on a prospective study of all reported cases of child sexual abuse in a community sample. Because the abuse was documented in hospital and research records this is the first study to provide evidence that some adults who claim to have recovered memories of of child sexual abuse recall actual events which occurred in childhood. These findings also are not limited to a clinical sample of women in treatment for child sexual abuse. The findings document the occurrence of recovered memories.

Not having time to read all the links, I guess my initial response is:
Nobody questions that childhood abuse occurs.
Nobody questions that some abuse is forgotten.
Nobody questions that some abuse is remembered.
What is in question is whether or not abuse which is remembered after being forgotten is correctly remembered. Williams describes 5 cases where it seems that it was. How far can we generalize from these cases?
But Melin is correct: this issue is not settled.

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Felice

“There’s always a bigger fish.”

[David_B]

Maybe I missed it in looking over the essay, but were the memories “forgotten” or “repressed”? I think there is a difference – at least according to most proponents of recovered memory therapy.

I forget all sorts of things and later remember them when asked about them again. But that is not the same as repressing a memory and then having it brought back through therapy.

[Felice]

In general Loftus is pretty highly regarded in the psychological community as doing good, solid, empirical research.

Now, of course, there is a certain population which maintains that almost ALL of psychology is bogus, and that most, if not all of therapeutic psychology is self-perpetuating scams. But that’s a topic for another thread.

Felice

“There’s always a bigger fish.”

[andros]

Right. That guy. Thanks, David.

[Felice]

Actually, David, in the quick reading I gave WIlliams’ article, the 5 women who recovered memories of their abuse did not do so through therapy. The memories spontaneously recurred through watching a tv show about abuse, or seeing someone who resembled the abuser, etc.
One question I’d like to see answered is, what was the mental/physical condition of these women during the interval of forgetting? E.g., the PTSD research she cites suggests that trauma victims have a slew of psychological and physical ailments that may be related to the trauma, even if they have no explicit recall of the traumatic event itself. I would anticipate, therefore, that it is unlikely a child sex abuse victim would have an otherwise normal, healthy development, with a loving relationship with the parents (or other perp) and only in adulthood develops symptoms of trauma. I’d expect to see problems all the way along, from the date of the traumatic event onwards. But I’m not a specialist in PTSD.

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Felice

“There’s always a bigger fish.”

[David_B]

Very good points, Felice. I believe the “forgetting” vs. “repressing” was one of the complaints I originally had with the study, but that could be a false memory created just now.

[SwimmingRiddles]

Originally posted by Felice:
** E.g., the PTSD research she cites suggests that trauma victims have a slew of psychological and physical ailments that may be related to the trauma, even if they have no explicit recall of the traumatic event itself. I would anticipate, therefore, that it is unlikely a child sex abuse victim would have an otherwise normal, healthy development, with a loving relationship with the parents (or other perp) and only in adulthood develops symptoms of trauma. I’d expect to see problems all the way along, from the date of the traumatic event onwards. But I’m not a specialist in PTSD.
**

After seeing Saving Private Ryan, my father, a Veteran’s Administration mental health councilor saw a HUGE upswing in “business.” He had support groups of WWII vets with record numbers. These men were going to this movie with their grandkids, and it was pulling all SORTS of stuff out of the woodwork. So amoung those who work with PTSD patients, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that repressed memories DO happen.(remember the last episode of MAS*H?) But I also don’t doubt that False Memory Syndrome is just as real.

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One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. -Nietzche

[Felice]

But is that repressing, or forgetting? I -and I suspect most people- have the experience all the time of abruptly remembering something I had forgotten. “What was your childhood phone number?” “Uh…I forget.” “555-1212”. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. I knew that.” Often a smell, a sight, a situation will remind me of something I had forgotten. Frequently conversations with high school friends will bring to mind events, situations, or people that I had forgotten. Is that repressing? I don’t think so. (Although high school did have its traumatic moments… :))

Did all these folks ‘repress’ their memories of WWII, or did they forget? And is it possible to tell the difference? Is it forgetting if its nontraumatic, and repressing if it is traumatic?

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Felice

“There’s always a bigger fish.”

[SwimmingRiddles]

Originally posted by Felice:
** Did all these folks ‘repress’ their memories of WWII, or did they forget? And is it possible to tell the difference? Is it forgetting if its nontraumatic, and repressing if it is traumatic?
**

It’s pretty hard to forget people blowing up around you, just because of the trauma value. So I think they repressed.

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One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. -Nietzche