DOCSLIB.ORG

THE ROLE of WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY in FALSE MEMORY a Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of Psychology California

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
THE ROLE of WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY in FALSE MEMORY a Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of Psychology California THE ROLE OF WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY IN FALSE MEMORY A Thesis Presented to the faculty of the Department of Psychology California State University, Sacramento Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in Psychology by Lilian Edith Cabrera SUMMER 2016 © 2016 Lilian Edith Cabrera ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii THE ROLE OF WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY IN FALSE MEMORY A Thesis by Lilian Edith Cabrera Approved by: __________________________________, Committee Chair Jianjian Qin, Ph.D. __________________________________, Second Reader Lawrence S. Meyers, Ph.D. __________________________________, Third Reader Jeffrey Calton, Ph.D. ____________________________ Date iii Student: Lilian Edith Cabrera I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis. __________________________, Graduate Coordinator ___________________ Lisa M. Bohon, Ph.D. Date Department of Psychology iv Abstract of THE ROLE OF WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY IN FALSE MEMORY by Lilian Edith Cabrera The present study examined the effect of working memory capacity in false memory elicited by the DRM paradigm in two experiments (Experiment 1: N = 31, 80.6% female, age M = 21.29 years, SD = 4.26; Experiment 2: N = 29, 72.4% female, age M = 20.28 years, SD = 3.02). A concurrent digit load task was introduced to reduce available working memory capacity for the DRM task. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that false recall of critical lures was marginally higher when participants had a concurrent digit load task. While the initial increase in the digit load increased false recognition of critical lures, a further increase in the digit load reduced false recognition. In Experiment 2, participants were forewarned about the tendency of associative lists to elicit false memory of critical lures. Results from Experiment 2 demonstrated that while the concurrent digit load task did not affect false memory, warning instructions significantly reduced false recognition of critical lures. _______________________, Committee Chair Jianjian Qin, Ph.D. _______________________ Date v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my graduate advisor, Dr. Jianjian Qin, for the immeasurable amount of support, guidance, and immense knowledge that he provided throughout the completion of my thesis. His guidance throughout my thesis research and graduate education has been pivotal to my growth as a student. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Lawrence Meyers and Dr. Jeff Calton for their support in completing my thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my mother, father, and sisters, for their unconditional love, support, and encouragement. They have been a great source of motivation to continue my academic journey. I would also like to acknowledge my best friend and partner in life, Joshua Haro, who has been an invaluable source of support and encouragement during this significant chapter in my life. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ vi List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... ix List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 False Memory Research .......................................................................................... 3 Proposed Mechanisms for False Memory ............................................................. 12 The Role of Working Memory Capacity in False Memory .................................. 18 The Present Study ................................................................................................. 23 Hypotheses ............................................................................................................ 25 2. EXPERIMENT ONE .................................................................................................. 27 Method .................................................................................................................. 27 Materials ............................................................................................................... 28 Procedure .............................................................................................................. 30 Results ................................................................................................................... 32 Discussion ............................................................................................................. 45 3. EXPERIMENT TWO ................................................................................................. 48 Method .................................................................................................................. 48 Results ................................................................................................................... 49 Discussion ............................................................................................................. 62 vii 4. GENERAL DISCUSSION ......................................................................................... 65 Appendix A. DRM Word Lists ....................................................................................... 73 Appendix B. Participant Information Questionnaire ...................................................... 76 Appendix C. Inventory of Memory Experience ............................................................. 77 Appendix D. Warning Instructions ................................................................................. 83 References ......................................................................................................................... 84 viii LIST OF TABLES Tables Page 1. The Effect of Concurrent Digit Load on Recall Performance .............................. 36 2. The Effect of Concurrent Digit Load on Recognition Memory ........................... 36 3. The Effects of Concurrent Digit Load and WMC on False Alarm Rate for Critical Lures ........................................................................................................ 38 4. The Effect of Concurrent Digit Load on Sensitivity and Response Bias ............. 40 5. The Effects of Concurrent Digit Load and Word Type on Response Time (ms) . 42 6. Correlations between Memory Performance and Measures of Individual Differences ............................................................................................................ 43 7. Correlations between SDT Indices and Measures of Individual Differences ....... 45 8. The Effect of Concurrent Digit Load on Recall Performance .............................. 51 9. The Effects of Concurrent Digit Load, Warning Instructions, and WMC on False Recall of Critical Lures ............................................................................... 53 10. The Effect of Concurrent Digit Load on Recognition Memory ........................... 54 11. The Effects of Concurrent Digit Load, Warning Instructions, and WMC on False Alarm Rate for Critical Lures ...................................................................... 56 12. The Effect of Concurrent Digit Load on Sensitivity and Response Bias ............. 58 13. The Effects of Concurrent Digit Load and Word Type on Response Time (ms) . 59 14. Correlations between Memory Performance and Measures of Individual Differences ............................................................................................................ 60 ix 15. Correlations between SDT Indices and Measures of Individual Differences ....... 62 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Flow chart of the study procedure.. ...................................................................... 31 xi 1 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Memory plays a crucial role in numerous aspects of everyday life. Our memory provides us with the ability to remember a range of information from day-to-day tasks to life events, allowing us to create a history of events that occur throughout our lifetime. Although we can often trust the accuracy of our memory, memory can also be flawed. Two general ways that memory can fail include failing to remember something (omission memory error), or remembering incorrectly (commission memory error) (Roediger & McDermott, 2000; Schacter, 2001). In the past few decades, a substantial amount of research has emerged examining false memory, a memory of an event that never occurred but that an individual mistakenly identifies as an event that happened (Lampinen, Neuschatz, & Payne, 1997). To understand the occurrence of false memory, researchers have devised several procedures to elicit false memory. The most commonly employed procedure is the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm (DRM; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). The DRM paradigm has been adopted in a variety of domains, including neuroimaging, development, aging, and individual differences to examine the mechanisms underlying false memory and factors that influence false memory susceptibility. For example, previous research has demonstrated that older adults are at risk of experiencing lower levels of veridical memory and higher
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Reducing False Memories Chad S
    MacLeod and MacDonald – The Stroop effect and attention Review 17 Dunbar, K.N. and MacLeod, C.M. (1984) A horse race of a different 28 Carter, C.S. et al. (2000) Parsing executive processes: strategic versus color: Stroop interference patterns with transformed words. J. Exp. evaluative functions of the anterior cingulate cortex. Proc. Natl. Acad. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 10, 622–639 Sci. U. S. A. 97, 1944–1948 18 Fraisse, P. (1969) Why is naming longer than reading? Acta Psychol. 29 Derbyshire, S.W.G. et al. (1998) Pain and Stroop interference activate 30, 96–103 separate processing modules in anterior cingulate. Exp. Brain Res. 19 Kolers, P.A. (1975) Memorial consequences of automatized encoding. 118, 52–60 J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Learn. Mem. 1, 689–701 30 Bush, G. et al. (2000) Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior 20 Tzelgov, J. et al. (1992) Controlling Stroop effects by manipulating cingulate cortex. Trends Cognit. Sci. 4, 215–222 expectations for color words. Mem. Cognit. 20, 727–735 31 Corbetta, M. et al. (1991) Selective and divided attention during visual 21 Duncan-Johnson, C.C. (1981) P300 latency: a new metric of discriminations of shape, color, and speed: functional anatomy by information processing. Psychophysiology 18, 207–215 positron emission tomography. J. Neurosci. 11, 2383–2402 22 Duncan-Johnson, C.C. and Kopell, B.S. (1981) The Stroop effect: brain 32 Petersen, S.E. et al. (1988) Positron emission tomographic studies potentials localize the source of interference. Science 214, 938–940 of the cortical anatomy of single-word processing. Nature 23 Bench, C.J.
    [Show full text]
  • False-Memory Stories
    Telling Incest: Narratives of Dangerous Remembering from Stein to Sapphire Janice Doane and Devon Hodges http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=10780 The University of Michigan Press, 2009. Chapter 5 The Science of Memory False-Memory Stories False Memory Syndrome Foundation members, largely those who have been accused of child abuse and expert witnesses on their behalf, have compelling reasons to insist that repressed memories of abuse be veri‹ed by clear and con- vincing empirical evidence, precisely the kind of evidence often lacking in incestuous abuse cases.1 While there are cases where a child with venereal dis- ease or a bleeding vagina is admitted to an emergency room and evidence obtained of abuse, signs of molestation may not be at all obvious. Adults have been mistakenly charged with abuse as a result of misreadings of physical evi- dence, resulting, for example, from incorrect assumptions about what “nor- mal” genitals and hymens are supposed to look like (Nathan and Snedeker, 180–81). And children enjoined to silence may long delay reports of abuse, with the result that physical marks of molestation, should they exist, would be healed by the time accusations are made. Without damning physical evidence, charges of incestuous abuse are hard to prove. If the memory wars re›ect deep ambivalence about the declining fortunes of patriarchal authority, they are sus- tained by problems with collecting incontrovertible evidence of sexual abuse, whether to vindicate accusers or the accused. What is debated are less tangible archives of the past. As we have seen, proponents of recovered memory focus on psychological processes, such as repression and dissociation, that long impede the recollection of sexual abuse.
    [Show full text]
  • Memory Search
    Memory Search Michael J. Kahana Department of Psychology University of Pennsylvania Draft: Do not quote Abstract Much has been learned about the dynamics of memory search in the last two decades, primarily through the lens of the free recall task. Here I review the major empirical findings obtained using this memory-search paradigm. I also discuss how these findings have been used to advance theories of memory search. Specific topics covered include serial-position effects, recall dynam- ics and organizational processes, false recall, repetition and spacing effects, inter-response times, and individual differences. At our dinner table each evening my wife and I ask our children to tell us what hap- pened to them at school that day; our older ones sometimes ask us to tell them stories from our day at work. Answering these questions requires that we each search our memories for the day's events, and evaluate each memory's interest value for the dinner table conversa- tion. Our search must target those memories that belong to a particular context, usually defined by the time and place in which the event occurred. In the psychological laboratory, this task is referred to as free recall, and is studied by first having subjects experience a series of items (the study list), Then, either immediately or after some delay, subjects attempt to recall as many items as they can remember irrespective of the items' order of presentation. Unlike other memory tasks, free recall does not provide a specific retrieval cue for each target item. Typically, items are common words presented one at a time on a computer monitor.
    [Show full text]
  • {Download PDF} False Memories
    FALSE MEMORIES PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Isaku Natsume | 202 pages | 01 Aug 2013 | Viz Media, Subs. of Shogakukan Inc | 9781421558561 | English | San Francisco, CA, United States False Memories PDF Book We may also include misinformation we encountered after the event. Recent research suggests negative emotions lead to more false memories than positive or neutral emotions. Archived from the original on 12 March Psychological phenomenon. Audio help More spoken articles. You say yes, then quickly correct yourself to say it was black. The researchers then asked the participants if they had seen any broken glass, knowing that there was no broken glass in the video. Marsh , Dept. Upon asking a respondent a question that provides a presupposition, the respondent will provide a recall in accordance with the presupposition if accepted to exist in the first place. American Psychologist. Instead, fuzzy trace theory puts forward the idea that there are two types of memory: verbatim and gist. This is sometimes called the Mandela effect. New York: Oxford University Press; This is what a lot of people think happened in the Netflix series "Making a Murderer," for instance. The data was scored so that if a child made one false affirmation during the interview, the child was classified as inaccurate. In , Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer conducted a study [5] to investigate the effects of language on the development of false memory. Cognitive Psychology, 22, Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Use dmy dates from June All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from February CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown Spoken articles Articles with hAudio microformats.
    [Show full text]
  • Source Misattributions May Increase the Accuracy of Source Judgments
    Memory & Cognition 2007, 35 (5), 1024-1033 Source misattributions may increase the accuracy of source judgments KEITH B. LYLE University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky AND MARCIA K. JOHNSON Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut Misattribution of remembered information from one source to another is commonly associated with false memories, but we demonstrate that it also may underlie memories that accord with past events. Participants imagined drawings of objects in four different locations. For each, a drawing of a similarly shaped object was seen in the same location, a different location, or not seen. When tested on memory for objects’ origin (seen/ imagined) and location, more false “seen” responses, but also more correct location responses, were given to imagined objects if a similar object had been seen, versus not seen, in the same location. We argue that misat- tribution of feature information (e.g., shape, location) from seen objects to similar imagined ones increased false memories of seeing objects but also increased correct location memories, provided the misattributed location matched the imagined objects’ location. Thus, consistent with the source-monitoring framework, imperfect source-attribution processes underlie false and true memories. The idea that remembered information from one source Geraci & Franklin, 2004; Henkel & Franklin, 1998). This may be mistakenly attributed to a different source (i.e., increase in false memory for having seen the drawings is source misattribution) has proven useful in explaining thought to be due to the misattribution of perceived fea- a variety of false memory phenomena (Johnson, Hash- ture information from seen objects to similar imagined troudi, & Lindsay, 1993; Mitchell & Johnson, 2000).
    [Show full text]
  • Inquiry Into the Practice of Recovered Memory Therapy
    INQUIRY INTO THE PRACTICE OF RECOVERED MEMORY THERAPY September 2005 Report by the Health Services Commissioner to the Minister for Health, the Hon. Bronwyn Pike MP under Section 9(1)(m) of the Health Services (Conciliation and Review) Act 1987 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 DEFINITIONS...............................................................................................................................4 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................7 3 RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................................................................17 4 BACKGROUND TO THE INQUIRY.....................................................................................18 4.1 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................18 4.2 Terms of Reference.............................................................................................................19 4.3 The Inquiry Team ................................................................................................................20 4.4 Methodology...........................................................................................................................20 4.4.1 Literature review ..........................................................................................................20 4.4.2 Legislative review ........................................................................................................20
    [Show full text]
  • IN PRESS at TRENDS in COGNITIVE SCIENCES Individual
    Running Head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY IN PRESS AT TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES Individual differences in autobiographical memory Daniela J. Palombo1,2, Signy Sheldon3, & Brian Levine*4,5 1Memory Disorders Research Center & Neuroimaging Research for Veterans Center (NeRVe), VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, USA 2Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, USA 3Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montréal, Canada 4Baycrest Health Sciences, Rotman Research Institute, Toronto, Canada 5Department of Psychology and Medicine (Neurology), University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada *Correspondence: [email protected] (B. Levine). Running Head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY 2 Abstract Although humans have a remarkable capacity to recall a wealth of detail from the past, there are marked inter-individual differences in the quantity and quality of our mnemonic experiences. Such differences in autobiographical memory may appear self-evident, yet there has been little research on this topic. In this review, we synthesize an emerging body of research regarding individual differences in autobiographical memory. We focus on two syndromes that fall at the extreme of the ‘remembering’ dimension, Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) and Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM). We also discuss findings from research on less extreme individual differences in autobiographical memory. This avenue of research is pivotal for a full description of the behavioral and neural substrates of autobiographical memory. Keywords: episodic memory, Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory Running Head: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY 3 Individual Differences in Remembering Humans are capable of retaining a wealth of detail from personal (autobiographical) memories. Yet, the quantity and quality of mnemonic experience differs substantially across individuals.
    [Show full text]
  • False Memories in Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory Individuals
    False memories in highly superior autobiographical memory individuals Lawrence Patihisa,1, Steven J. Frendaa, Aurora K. R. LePortb,c, Nicole Petersenb,c, Rebecca M. Nicholsa, Craig E. L. Starkb,c, James L. McGaughb,c, and Elizabeth F. Loftusa aDepartment of Psychology and Social Behavior, bDepartment of Neurobiology and Behavior, and cCenter for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 Edited by George Sperling, University of California, Irvine, CA, and approved October 22, 2013 (received for review July 29, 2013) The recent identification of highly superior autobiographical memory and the cellist Jacqueline du Pré died that day.” HSAM indi- (HSAM) raised the possibility that there may be individuals who viduals can remember what happened on a day a decade ago are immune to memory distortions. We measured HSAM partic- better than most people can remember a day a month ago. In ipants’ and age- and sex-matched controls’ susceptibility to false some ways, these abilities seem to be at odds with what we know memories using several research paradigms. HSAM participants about the reconstructive, unreliable, and malleable processes and controls were both susceptible to false recognition of non- underlying memory in people with typical memory. presented critical lure words in an associative word-list task. In a HSAM abilities are distinct from previously described superior- misinformation task, HSAM participants showed higher overall memory individuals (22–25) who typically rely upon practiced false memory compared with that of controls for details in a pho- mnemonics to remember unusually long lists of domain-specific tographic slideshow. HSAM participants were equally as likely as data, yet remain average in their ability to retrieve autobio- controls to mistakenly report they had seen nonexistent footage graphical information.
    [Show full text]
  • The Seven Sins of Memory: an Update
    Memory ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pmem20 The seven sins of memory: an update Daniel L. Schacter To cite this article: Daniel L. Schacter (2021): The seven sins of memory: an update, Memory, DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2021.1873391 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1873391 Published online: 17 Jan 2021. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=pmem20 MEMORY https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1873391 REVIEW ARTICLE The seven sins of memory: an update Daniel L. Schacter Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Memory serves critical functions in everyday life, but it is also vulnerable to error and illusion. Received 28 September 2020 Two decades ago, I proposed that memory errors could be classified into seven basic categories Accepted 3 January 2021 or “sins”: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and KEYWORDS persistence. I argued that each of the seven sins provides important insights concerning the Constructive memory; fundamentally constructive nature of human memory, while at the same time reflecting its fl memory errors; adaptive features. In this article I brie y summarise some key developments during the past misattribution; two decades that have increased our understanding of the nature, consequences, and suggestibility; adaptive adaptive functions of the memory sins. functions Psychologists have long known that memory is subject to edition of The Seven Sins of Memory that discusses note- various forms of error and illusion.
    [Show full text]
  • The World of Psychology, Portable Edition
    THE WORLD OF PSYCHOLOGY, PORTABLE EDITION © 2007 Samuel E. Wood Ellen Green Wood Denise Boyd, Houston Community College System ISBN: 0-205-49009-3 Visit www.ablongman.com/replocator to contact your local Allyn & Bacon/Longman representative. The colors in this document are not an accurate representation of the final textbook colors. SAMPLE CHAPTER 6 The pages of this Sample Chapter may have slight variations in final published form. Allyn & Bacon 75 Arlington St., Suite 300 Boston, MA 02116 www.ablongman.com 5234_Wood_ch06_pp275-326 1/24/06 2:37 PM Page 275 5 6.1 Remembering The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model The Levels-of-Processing Model Three Kinds of Memory Tasks 5 6.2 The Nature of Remembering Memory as a Reconstruction Eyewitness Testimony Recovering Repressed Memories Unusual Memory Phenomena Memory and Culture 5 6.3 Factors Influencing Retrieval The Serial Position Effect Environmental Context and Memory The State-Dependent Memory Effect 5 6.4 Biology and Memory The Hippocampus and Hippocampal Region Neuronal Changes and Memory Hormones and Memory 5 6.5 Forgetting Ebbinghaus and the First Experimental Studies on Forgetting The Causes of Forgetting 5 6.6 Improving Memory 275 5234_Wood_ch06_pp275-326 1/24/06 2:38 PM Page 276 276 5 CHAPTER 6 How accurate is your memory? Franco Magnani was born in 1934 in Pontito, an ancient village in the hills of Tuscany, Italy. His father died when 5Franco was eight. Soon after that, Nazi troops occupied the village. The Magnani family lived through many years of hardship, at times facing starvation. With the help of the village priest, Franco fulfilled a lifelong dream when he emigrated to the United States in 1958 and settled in San Francisco.
    [Show full text]
  • Working Memory Beats Age: Evidence of the Influence of Working Memory on the Production of Children’S Emotional False Memories
    fpsyg-12-714498 August 12, 2021 Time: 13:34 # 1 BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT published: 18 August 2021 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.714498 Working Memory Beats Age: Evidence of the Influence of Working Memory on the Production of Children’s Emotional False Memories Chiara Mirandola1,2* and Francesca Pazzaglia2 1 Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy, 2 Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy Emotional valence and working memory ability (WM) affect false memories’ production in adults. Whereas a number of studies have investigated the role of emotional valence in children’s tendency to produce spontaneous false memories, individual differences in WM have not been previously included. In the current article, we were interested in investigating whether emotion and WM would interact in influencing the propensity to incur inferential false memories for scripted events. Ninety-eight typically developing Edited by: children ( first-, third-, and eighth- graders) were administered the Emotional false Beatriz Martín-Luengo, National Research University Higher memory paradigm – allowing to study false memories for negative, positive, and neutral School of Economics, Russia events – and a WM task. Results showed that regardless of age, valence influenced false Reviewed by: memories’ production, such that positive events protected against incurring distortions. Kate Cockcroft, University of the Witwatersrand, Furthermore, WM interacted with valence, such that children with higher WM abilities South Africa produced fewer false memories for negative events. Concerning confidence judgments, Carlos M. Gómez, only the youngest group of children claimed to be overconfident when committing false University of Seville, Spain memories for negative and neutral events.
    [Show full text]
  • False Memories: Finding a Balance Phil Mollon
    Advances in Psycliiatric Treatment (2998), vol. 4, pp. 335-342 False memories: finding a balance Phil Mollon There can be few more agonising experiences than false memories is considerably less than that for the being falsely accused of having sexually abused distortion of memories of actual events (British one's child - except perhaps to be told that one's Psychological Society, 1995; Mollon, 1998). long-standing memories of childhood abuse are an example of false memory syndrome. People have been profoundly hurt both by false accusations of abuse and by false denials and Distortion and polarisation dismissals of memories of abuse. Both of these can happen. The problem for the unwary reader, wishing to be informed about good practice in relation to memory of childhood, is that the current debate is pervaded Where we can all agree by polemics, distortion and polarisation. As Brown et al (1998) comment: "From the very beginning, the debate has been It is quite possible to write either an article which characterised by a viciousness unparalleled in the supports the position of false memory advocates, or annals of contemporary scientific disagreements. one which gives credence to recovered memories, Because of the zealotry, science has taken a back seat. depending on what evidence one chooses to select. In its place have been wild and inaccurate articulations or 'hyperbole' and 'rhetorical devices'...that have Because of the extraordinary dominance of false served, not as science, but as emotional sound bites memory rhetoric in media coverage of this subject, I for a gullible media." will attempt to redress the balance by urging some caution and pointing to ways in which current What impairs our capacity to think about this arguments and assumptions can mislead.
    [Show full text]