X-Message-Number: 23803
From: "Basie" <>
Subject: More bad news for memory lovers.
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 19:30:51 -0500

""The findings support the general theoretical perspective that memories
aren't things that are stored somewhere in your head," says Dr. Lindsay.
"Memories are experiences that we can have that arise through an interaction
between things that really have happened to us in the past and our current
expectations and beliefs." "



Can We Believe Our Memories?
The use of photographs by psychotherapists as memory cues for the "recovery"
of patients' possible childhood sexual abuse has been called into question
by a Canadian study. It found that a "staggering" two-out-of-three
participants accepted a concocted false grade-school event as having really
happened to them when suggestions regarding the event were supplemented with
a class photo.

 What's Related
Experts Can't Tell The Difference Between False And True Accounts Of
Children, Cornell Study Shows

From Kissing Frogs To Demonic Possession, People Are Led To Believe They
Experienced The Improbable

Scientists Find Brain Areas Activated In True Versus False Memories

> more related stories

----
Related section: Mind & Brain


"I was flabbergasted to have attained such an exceptionally high rate of
quite elaborate false memory reports," says University of Victoria
psychology professor Dr. Stephen Lindsay. His NSERC-sponsored research is
published in the March 2004 issue of Psychological Science.

Forty-five first year psychology students were told three stories about
their grade-school experiences and asked about their memories of them. Two
of the accounts were of real grade three to six events recounted to the
researchers by the participant's parents. The third event was fictitious,
but also attributed to the parents. It related how, in grade one, the
subject and a friend got into trouble for putting Slime (a colourful
gelatinous goo-like toy made by Mattel that came in a garbage can) in their
teacher's desk.

The participants were encouraged to recall the events through a mix of
guided imagery and "mental context re-instatement"--the mental equivalent of
putting themselves back in their grade-school shoes. Half of the
participants were also given their real grade one class photo, supplied by
their parents.

The photo had a dramatic impact on the rate at which participants thought
they had some memory of the imaginary Slime event.

About a quarter of the participants without a photo said they had some
memory of the false event. But 67-per cent of those with a photo claimed to
have a memory of the non-event--a rate that is double that found in any
other study of false memory of autobiographical pseudoevents.

"The false memories were richly detailed," says Dr. Lindsay, whose research
focuses on memory and who co-authored the paper with a team from the
University of Victoria and the Victoria University of Wellington, New
Zealand.

Of those who claimed to remember the Slime event, most did so with just as
much confidence as for the two real events.

When asked which of the events didn't really happen, all but three of the
participants said it was the Slime event. Even so, the fact that it was
concocted elicited surprised reactions, including the comment, "No way! I
remembered it! That is so weird!"

Dr. Lindsay attributes the remarkably high rate of false memory to several
factors. These include the plausibility of the Slime scenario (including
that a friend was involved), the confidence inspired by the skilled and
outgoing interviewee Lisa Hagen, a former student and co-author on the
paper, and the role of the photo as both a memory prod and seemingly
corroborating piece of evidence.

"The findings support the general theoretical perspective that memories
aren't things that are stored somewhere in your head," says Dr. Lindsay.
"Memories are experiences that we can have that arise through an interaction
between things that really have happened to us in the past and our current
expectations and beliefs."

He acknowledges that the use of suggestive memory "recovery" techniques by
psychotherapists has declined since the late-1980s when it hit fad status.
At the time, efforts to "recover" repressed childhood trauma memories were
encouraged by such popular books as The Courage to Heal.

"But there still are people who use trauma-oriented memory approaches to
therapy. And our results argue for caution in the use of any of these
suggestive techniques," says Dr. Lindsay. "Results like these support the
concern that these kinds of techniques increase the likelihood that people
will experience false memories."


###

A PDF version of the article "True Photographs and False Memories" can be
found at http://web.uvic.ca/psyc/lindsay/cv/index.html#publications

The published article is: Lindsay, D.S., Hagen, L., Read, J.D., Wade, K.A. &
Garry, M. (2004). "True photographs and false memories." Psychological
Science, Vol. 15, 149-154.

Journal Web link: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journals/psci/

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