On repression, and avoiding red herrings

In this response to Otgaar et al. (in press) we point out that their concern with the notion of unconscious repression is a classic example of a red herring, as it has never been endorsed as an explanation of recovered memories. We also note that Otgaar et al. have misunderstood the purpose of our article (Brewin, Li, Ntarantana, Unsworth, & McNeilis, 2019). Its aim was to demonstrate that many of the claims made by psychologists about the public’s views on memory do not rest on sound methodology. Beliefs about repression featured as one example, but it was not our objective to establish what the public do think about repression. We welcome Otgaar et al.’s (in press) additional data but regret that they have repeated the basic error we highlighted, the reliance on a single questionnaire item to assess beliefs about highly complex topics. Nevertheless, their and our findings clearly indicate that understanding of the public’s views on repression remains extremely limited, and insufficient to meaningfully contribute to legal processes

Is the public understanding of memory prone to widespread "myths"?

It is frequently asserted that the understanding of memory among the general public and among legal and psychological professionals is deficient, the most prominent examples being that many people appear to liken memory to a video camera, overestimate the association between accuracy and confidence, and believe in repression. The existing evidence is limited to single questionnaire items, however, and to date there has been little investigation of context effects or of the public's underlying assumptions about memory. In the first study we found that people endorse the video camera metaphor as well as several other prominent memory metaphors, but that they were more likely to agree that memory is not like a video camera when the assumptions were made explicit and alternative responses were provided. In the second study, we replicated this finding and found a context effect whereby alternatives reduced endorsement of the video camera metaphor. For the first time we identified frequent reports of naturally occurring imagery involving moving scenes and showed that drawing attention to imagery increased agreement with the video camera metaphor. In a third study, we found that nonpsychologists' beliefs about accuracy-confidence, while reflecting considerable uncertainty, were more consistent with the current evidence than those of psychologists, and that they tended to use the term repression in a way consistent with scientific evidence. Overall, lay views of memory were considerably more nuanced and in line with research than has been suggested, contradicting claims of widespread memory "myths." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)