Hi all,
David Epstein wrote:
My chief concern is with the word-list task used to elicit false
recognition...
...As regards memories of childhood abuse, what's being
modeled here? I'm not sure anything is being modeled, unless
it's what Clancy et al. call "gist" memory...
...I don't think that this sort of "memory illusion" gets at the
heart of the recovered-memory controversy...
...What sort of task could model this? Perhaps a modified
version of the word-list task, as suggested by Freyd & Gleaves
(1996):
ACTUAL EVENT:
The list contained "orange," "lime," and "grapefruit."
FALSE MEMORY:
The list contained "orange," "lime," "grapefruit," and "penis."
Clancy et al. demonstrate familiarity with the Freyd & Gleaves
(1996) paper by citing it. However, they do not mention the
modified word-list task, much less use it. Had they used it and
still shown some especial proneness toward false recognition
in their recovered-memory group, I would be signing up right
now for membership in the FMSF.
David, I don't think that anyone using the Deese word-list
task claims the "false memories" it produces are a particularly
close analogue to false memories of sexual abuse. Rather, it
is but one task in a long tradition of research (starting with
Bartlett) on the reproductive/reconstructive processes of
memory. This tradition demonstrates that people can be easily
led to misremember past events, even though they report high
confidence in their accuracy and report vivid recollections of
the event (e.g., eyewitness testimony research, the "knew-it-
all-along" effect, "flashbulb memory" research, and some of
the schema research of the 1980s).
These tasks differ from the "real life" issue of recovered
memory of sexual abuse in any number of ways: They
typically test for memory for one-time events, rather than
a series (or a lifetime) of events; also, the "events"
are often as mundane as word lists, and so are not very
realistic or emotionally involved (but see flashbulb memory
work).
However, note that the false memories produced in these
tasks happen rather passively, without much coaching,
persuading, or active pressure on the part of the experimenter
(often a critical variable is simply the passage of time between
study and recall). Contast this situation with what may happen
in some "survivor" groups where a suspected abuse victim is
brought into a group setting where the stories of others' abuse
are recounted, supported, and encouraged, and where there
might be some pressure to recover one's own memories of
past abuse. To me it doesn't seem so unreasonable that
*sometimes*, such group encouragement (not to mention
individual encouragement from a therapist), coupled with the
passage of substantial time since the supposed events
occurred, could result in rather vivid, confidently held, but
inaccurate "memories" of past abuse.
To me, the substantial difference between the word list task
and the events apparently recovered by the subjects in the
Psych Science article makes the story MUCH MORE
compelling, rather than less. That is, these women show
differences in reconstructive memory on a task that bears
virtually no surface similarity to the recovery of sexual
abuse, which suggests to me that there may be something
quite general about the memory processes of these women
(whether as a result or a cause of their recovered memory
experience) that may lead them to be highly "suggestible" in
their recall of past events.
-Mike
*****************************************************
Michael J. Kane
Psychology Department
Georgia State University
University Plaza
Atlanta, GA 30303-3083
phone: 404-651-0704
fax: 404-651-0753
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing
is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good,
as it is not to care how you got your money as
long as you have it."
-- E.W. Teale
