By now, we know that are memories are not perfect and prone to all sorts of errors. Let's talk more about how these false memories show up.<\/p>\r\n
We emphasized earlier that encoding is selective: people cannot encode all information they are exposed to. However, recoding can add information that was not even seen or heard during the initial encoding phase. Several of the recoding processes, like forming associations between memories, can happen without our awareness. This is one reason people can sometimes remember events that did not actually happen\u2014because during the process of recoding, details got added.<\/p>\r\n One common way of inducing false memories in the laboratory employs a word-list technique (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Participants hear lists of 15 words, like door, glass, pane, shade, ledge, sill, house, open, curtain, frame, view, breeze, sash, screen, <\/em>and shutter.<\/em><\/p>\r\n Later, participants are given a test in which they are shown a list of words and asked to pick out the ones they\u2019d heard earlier. This second list contains some words from the first list (e.g., door, pane, frame<\/em>) and some words not from the list (e.g., arm, phone, bottle<\/em>). Because humans are creative, we are always going beyond the information we are given: we automatically make associations and infer from them what is happening. But, as with the word association mix-up above, sometimes we make false memories from our inferences\u2014remembering the inferences themselves as if they were actual experiences.<\/p>\r\n To illustrate this, Brewer (1977) gave people sentences to remember that were designed to elicit pragmatic inferences<\/em>. Inferences, in general, refer to instances when something is not explicitly stated, but we are still able to guess the undisclosed intention.<\/p>\r\n For example, if your friend told you that she didn\u2019t want to go out to eat, you may infer that she doesn\u2019t have the money to go out, or that she\u2019s too tired.\u00a0Consider the statement Brewer (1977) gave her participants: \u201cThe karate champion hit the cinder block.\u201d<\/p>\r\n After hearing or seeing this sentence, participants who were given a memory test tended to remember the statement as having been, \u201cThe karate champion broke<\/em> the cinder block.\u201d This remembered statement is not necessarily a logical<\/em> inference (i.e., it is perfectly reasonable that a karate champion could hit a cinder block without breaking it). Nevertheless, the pragmatic<\/em> conclusion from hearing such a sentence is that the block was likely broken. The participants remembered this inference they made while hearing the sentence in place of the actual words that were in the sentence (see also McDermott & Chan, 2006).<\/p>\r\n Back in the early 1990s a pattern emerged whereby people would go into therapy for depression and other everyday problems, but over the course of the therapy develop memories for violent and horrible victimhood (Loftus & Ketcham, 1994). These patients\u2019 therapists claimed that the patients were recovering genuine memories of real childhood abuse, buried deep in their minds for years or even decades. But some experimental psychologists believed that the memories were instead likely to be false\u2014created in therapy.<\/p>\r\n These researchers then set out to see whether it would indeed be possible for wholly false memories to be created by procedures similar to those used in these patients\u2019 therapy.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Recall of false autobiographical memories is called false memory syndrome<\/strong>. This syndrome has received a lot of publicity, particularly as it relates to memories of events that do not have independent witnesses\u2014often the only witnesses to the abuse are the perpetrator and the victim (e.g., sexual abuse).<\/p>\r\n On one side of the debate are those who have recovered memories of childhood abuse years after it occurred. These researchers argue that some children\u2019s experiences have been so traumatizing and distressing that they must lock those memories away in order to lead some semblance of a normal life. They believe that repressed memories can be locked away for decades and later recalled intact through hypnosis and guided imagery techniques (Devilly, 2007).<\/p>\r\n Research suggests that having no memory of childhood sexual abuse is quite common in adults. For instance, one large-scale study conducted by John Briere and Jon Conte (1993) revealed that 59% of 450 men and women who were receiving treatment for sexual abuse that had occurred before age 18 had forgotten their experiences. Ross Cheit (2007) suggested that repressing these memories created psychological distress in adulthood.<\/p>\r\nCreating False Memories<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nIn this example, one of the words on the test is window<\/em>, which\u2014importantly\u2014does not appear in the first list, but which is related to other words in that list. When subjects were tested, they were reasonably accurate with the studied words (door<\/em>, etc.), recognizing them 72% of the time. However, when window<\/em> was on the test, they falsely recognized it as having been on the list 84% of the time (Stadler, Roediger, & McDermott, 1999). The same thing happened with many other lists the authors used.
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\r\nThis phenomenon is referred to as the DRM effect<\/strong> (for Deese-Roediger-McDermott). One explanation for such results is that, while students listened to items in the list, the words triggered the students to think about window<\/em>, even though window\u00a0<\/em>was never presented. In this way, people seem to encode events that are not actually part of their experience.<\/p>\r\n<\/section>\r\nMaking Memory Assumptions: Pragmatic Inferences<\/h3>\r\n
Controversies over Repressed and Recovered Memories<\/h2>\r\n
Repressed Memories and the Law<\/h3>\r\n\r\nIn January 1989, Eileen Franklin suddenly recalled being eight years old and witnessing the rape and murder of her best friend, Susan Nason. She also remembered the identity of the murderer \u2013 it was Eileen\u2019s own father, George Franklin. The ensuing trial was the first criminal case based on a repressed memory, and it raised questions and issues that continue to challenge the reliability of memory and of criminal testimony to this day. Eileen Franklin\u2019s memories were terrifying beyond imagining... but were they true beyond a reasonable doubt? In this clip, Elaine Tipton, Prosecutor, discusses the effect of Eileen Franklin's repressed memory.