What Science Tells Us About False and Repressed Memories

What does science tell us about memory phenomena such as false and repressed memories? This issue is highly pressing as incorrect knowledge about these memory phenomena might contribute to egregious effects in the courtroom such as false accusations of abuse. In the current article, we provide a succinct review of the scientific nature of false and repressed memories. We demonstrate that research has shown that about 30% of tested subjects formed false memories of autobiographical experiences. Furthermore, this empirical work has also revealed that such false memories can even be implanted for negative events and events that allegedly occurred repeatedly. Concerning the controversial topic of repressed memories, we show that plausible alternative explanations exist for why people claim to have forgotten traumatic experiences; explanations that do not require special memory mechanisms such as the unconscious blockage of traumatic memories. Finally, we demonstrate that people continue to believe that unconscious repression of traumatic incidents can exist. Disseminating scientifically articulated knowledge on the functioning of memory to contexts such as the courtroom is necessary as to prevent the occurrence of false accusations and miscarriages of justice

The Privatization Origins of Political Corporations: Evidence from the Pinochet Regime

We show that the sale of state owned firms in dictatorships can help political corporations to emerge and persist over time. Using new data, we characterize Pinochet’s privatizations in Chile and find that some firms were sold underpriced to politically connected buyers. These newly private firms benefited financially from the Pinochet regime. Once democracy arrived, they formed connections with the new government, financed political campaigns, and were more likely to appear in the Panama Papers. These findings reveal how dictatorships can influence young democracies using privatization reforms

Skirting the Issue: What Does Believing in Repression Mean?

We show that, in contrast to Brewin, Li, Ntarantana, Unsowrth, and McNeilis (2019), large proportions of laypersons believe in the scientifically controversial phenomenon of unconscious repressed memories. We provide new survey data showing that when participants are asked specific questions about what they mean when they report that traumatic memories can be repressed, most provide answers strongly consistent with unconscious repression. Our findings continue to show that researchers, legal professionals, and clinicians should be wary of invoking unconscious repression in their work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).</p

What if you went to the police and accused your uncle of abuse? Misunderstandings concerning the benefits of memory distortion: A commentary on Fernandez (2015)

In a recent paper, Fernández (in press) argues that memory distortion can have beneficial outcomes. Although we agree with this, we find his reasoning and examples flawed to such degree that they will lead to misunderstandings rather than clarification in the field of memory (distortion). In his paper, Fernández uses the terms belief and memory incorrectly, creating a conceptual blur. Also, Fernández tries to make the case that under certain circumstances, false memories of abuse are beneficial. We argue against this idea as the reasoning behind this claim is based on controversial assumptions such as repression. Although it is true that memory distortions can be beneficial, the examples sketched by Fernández are not in line with recent documentation in this area

Belief in Unconscious Repressed Memory Persists

Based on converging research, we concluded that the controversial topic of unconscious blockage of psychological trauma –i.e., repressed memory- remains very much alive in clinical, legal, and academic contexts (Otgaar et al., 2019). In his commentary, Brewin (in press) conducted a co-citation analysis and concluded that scholars do not adhere to the concept of unconscious repression. Furthermore, he argued that previous survey research did not specifically assess unconscious repression. Here, we present critical evidence that runs counter to his claims. First, we inspected his co-citation analysis and found that some scholars ascribe to notions closely related to unconscious repression. Furthermore, we conducted another analysis based on papers’ similarity between each other. Again, we found examples of scholars specifically endorsing unconscious repressed memories. Second, contra Brewin, recent survey research now exists that bears directly on people’s beliefs regarding unconscious repression. This work reveals that large percentages of people (students and EMDR clinicians) endorse the concept of unconscious repressed memories. The belief in unconscious repressed memory can continue to contribute to harmful consequences in clinical, legal, and academic domains (e.g., false accusations of abuse)

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) Practitioners’ Beliefs about Memory

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a widely used treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. The idea behind EMDR is that lateral eye movements may mitigate the emotional impact of traumatic memories. Given the focus on changing patients' memories, it is important that EMDR practitioners have detailed knowledge about human memory. We explored beliefs and ideas about memory in samples of EMDR practitioners (Study 1: n = 12; Study 2: n = 41), students (Study 1: n = 35; Study 2: n = 24), and researchers (Study 2: n = 30). All groups seemed to be aware of the fallibility of memory. However, a majority of the surveyed EMDR practitioners (70-90%), students (around 90%), and researchers (66.7%) endorsed the controversial idea of repressed memories. Skepticism and endorsement of problematic ideas about memory-related topics may coexist within the same group. In clinical settings, this might be problematic, because a strong belief in repressed memories might lead therapists to suggestively seek for such memories in patients

A Self-Reference False Memory Effect in the DRM Paradigm: Evidence from Eastern and Western Samples

It is well established that processing information in relation to oneself (i.e., selfreferencing) leads to better memory for that information than processing that same information in relation to others (i.e., other-referencing). However, it is unknown whether self-referencing also leads to more false memories than other-referencing. In the current two experiments with European and East Asian samples, we presented participants the Deese-Roediger/McDermott (DRM) lists together with their own name or other people’s name (i.e., “Trump” in Experiment 1 and “Li Ming” in Experiment 2). We found consistent results across the two experiments; that is, in the self-reference condition, participants had higher true and false memory rates compared to those in the other-reference condition. Moreover, we found that selfreferencing did not exhibit superior mnemonic advantage in terms of net accuracy compared to other-referencing and neutral conditions. These findings are discussed in terms of theoretical frameworks such as spreading activation theories and the fuzzytrace theory. We propose that our results reflect the adaptive nature of memory in the sense that cognitive processes that increase mnemonic efficiency may also increase susceptibility to associative false memories

The Return of the Repressed: The Persistent and Problematic Claims of Long-Forgotten Trauma

Can purely psychological trauma lead to a complete blockage of autobiographical memories? This longstanding question about the existence of repressed memories has been at the heart of one of the most heated debates in modern psychology. These so-called memory wars originated in the 1990s and many scholars have assumed that they are over. We demonstrate that this assumption is incorrect and that the controversial issue of repressed memories is alive and well and may even be on the rise. We review converging research and data from legal cases indicating that the topic of repressed memories remains active in clinical, legal, and academic settings. We show that the belief in repressed memories occurs on a non-trivial-scale (58%) and appears to have increased among clinical psychologists since the 1990s. We also demonstrate that the scientifically controversial concept of dissociative amnesia, which we argue is a substitute term for memory repression, has gained in popularity. Finally, we review work onthe adverse side effects of certain psychotherapeutic techniques, some of which may be linked to the recovery of repressed memories. The memory wars have not vanished: They have continued to endure and contribute to potentially damaging consequences in clinical, legal, and academic contexts

Crashing Memory 2.0: False Memories in Adults for an Upsetting Childhood Event

© 2015 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd. Summary: Previous crashing memory studies have shown that adults can be led to believe they witnessed video footage of news events for which no video footage actually exists. The current study is the first to investigate adults' tendency to report memories of viewing footage that took place when they were children: the plane crash in Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001. We found that in a computer questionnaire, 33% indicated a false memory with at least one false detail. In a more detailed face-to-face interview, only 13% of the group described a detailed false memory. Familiarity with the news story, fantasy proneness, alcohol use, and frequency of negative emotions after 9/11 were all associated with a Persistent False Memory. Participants who had received prior suggestion were more likely to later report false memories in the subsequent interview. We discuss our novel results and the importance of the paradigm