Believing is seeing Citation for published version (APA): Wang, J. (2018). Believing is seeing: cognitive-behavioral consequences of belief and recollection. Maastricht University. https://doi.org/10.26481/dis.20181010jw Document status and date: Published: 01/01/2018 DOI: 10.26481/dis.20181010jw Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Please check the document version of this publication: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. 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Letschert in accordance with the decision of the Board of Deans, to be defended in public on Wednesday, 10th October 2018, at 10.00 hours by Jianqin Wang Supervisors Dr. T. Smeets Prof. dr. H.L.G.J. Merckelbach Prof. dr. M.L. Howe (City, University of London) Co-supervisor Prof. dr. H. Otgaar (Maastricht University & KU Leuven) Assessment Committee Prof. dr. M. Jelicic (Chair) Prof. dr. A. d'Argembeau (Université de Liège) Prof. dr. P. Santtila (New York University) Dr. M. Sauerland Prof. dr. P. de Weerd TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 General Introduction 1 Part I Consequences of Memories in Practice and in The Lab Chapter 2 Negative consequences of false memories 25 Chapter 3 Positive consequences of true and false memories 51 Part II Consequences of Belief and Recollection Chapter 4 Undermining belief changes problem solving 93 Chapter 5 Undermining memory changes decision making 125 Chapter 6 Belief, not recollection, changes food preferences 149 Part III Theoretical Accounts and General Discussion Chapter 7 Memory as an adaptive, reconstructive system 187 related to the self Chapter 8 General Discussion 215 Summary 239 中文简介 241 Valorisation 243 Acknowledgement 247 Publications 251 General Introduction CHAPTER 1 General Introduction This Chapter is an adapted version of the following paper: Wang, J., Otgaar, H., Howe, M. L., Smeets, T., & Merckelbach, H. (2015). Can you nonbelieve it: What happens when you do not believe in your memories? In-Mind, 11. 1 Chapter 1 Humans act based on their memories. This may sound like a cliché, but the practical meaning of this is illustrated by, for example, the devastating effects of mistaken eyewitness identifications (Wells & Olson, 2003), the far-reaching consequences of innocents who falsely confess to crimes they never committed (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004), and the tragedy of adults who erroneously come to believe that they recovered very early memories of abuse experiences (Loftus, 1993). As for these alleged recovered memories: there was a fierce debate among psychologists, therapists, and legal professionals in the 1990s (Howe & Knott, 2015) about their authenticity, a debate that was even characterized as the “memory wars” (Patihis, Ho, Tingen, Lilienfeld, & Loftus, 2014). A recent study has shown that the memory wars have not vanished in the 21st century (Patihis & Pendergrast, in press). It took place against a background of hundreds of lawsuits by adults against their parents because of the alleged abuse memories from childhood that had been “recovered” during therapy in adulthood (Lipton, 1999). Some therapists and clinical psychologists argued that such recovered memories are essentially correct and surface after repression has been lifted due to therapeutic interventions (e.g., hypnosis, sedating drugs). Many researchers, however, contended that recovered memories might, in fact, be false memories produced by risky techniques such as hypnosis and guided imagery (Howe & Knott, 2015; Lambert & Lilienfeld, 2007). One group of individuals who are particularly interesting in this debate are those who previously claimed to have recovered a memory of a sexually abusive episode, but later retracted those claims (Ost, Costall, & Bull, 2002; Ost, 2017). Do these retractors still have “memories” of these abusive episodes? Or how do these retractors view their earlier experiences? A recent study found that some of these retractors continued to have vivid recollections of an event although they no longer believed that the event actually happened, a phenomenon named nonbelieved memory (Ost, 2017). Briefly, this phenomenon has revealed that under certain circumstances, people form memories of events but develop doubts about whether the events have actually occurred. Under these circumstances, people still report having vivid images and recollections of an event and even describe re-living the event, but they do not believe that the event actually happened. 2 General Introduction NONBELIEVED MEMORIES This nonbelieved memory phenomenon was previously assumed to be an extraordinary rare phenomenon, and not until recently has it attracted researchers’ attention (Mazzoni, Scoboria, & Harvey, 2010; Otgaar, Scoboria, & Mazzoni, 2014). Below, I will first explain the phenomenon of nonbelieved memories, what factors lead to nonbelieved memories, and describe the methods that have been used to experimentally induce them in the lab. Then, I will show how this phenomenon is relevant to theoretical constructs of memory and their possible cognitive-behavioral consequences. Recalling Being Kidnapped and Bombed, but not Believing it Memory scholars agree that in most cases, having a memory implies believing in that specific memory (Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Relyea, 2004). That is, we tend to believe that our recollections of certain events are true and that they actually happened. Yet for some of the events we believe in, we are unable to find associated recollections (e.g., we obviously believe that we were born although we do not have a recollection of being born). Sometimes, our long-held beliefs may be refuted by ‘clear evidence’, such as a photo displaying how an event really unfolded, which then may result in a no longer believed (i.e., nonbelieved) memory. For some time, scholars assumed that nonbelieved memories are a rare phenomenon. Anecdotal descriptions of such memories have occasionally surfaced in the literature. For example, the famous developmental psychologist Jean Piaget had a vivid memory of a man attempting to kidnap him when he was two years old. He remembered and described the event in great detail including information that the perpetrator scratched his nurse’s face (Piaget, 1951). However, not until thirteen years later, Piaget’s former nurse confessed that it was she who had fabricated the event and fed the story to him. Piaget no longer believed that he was almost kidnapped as a child, but he could not stop having vivid visualizations and images of the fabricated kidnapping, as if it had occurred. Oliver Sacks (2005) also described a vivid memory of a bomb that fell close to his home when he was a child, but later he did not believe in his memory because he learned that he was away from home at that time. 3 Chapter 1 Nonbelieved memories are fascinating, if only because the bulk of studies focusing on memory examine and measure believed memories: memories of events for which people also strongly believe that the event occurred (Scoboria, Mazzoni, Kirsch, & Relyea, 2004). This is a comprehensible situation as believed memories of events might be seen as the status quo of our memory repertoire. While various ideas about memory suggest that memories are typically believed to be true (e.g., James, 1890/1950; Brewer, 1996), it is only recently that memory researchers have started to investigate the possibility that memory might exist without accompanying belief. Are Nonbelieved Memories Really Rare? In the first systematic study looking into nonbelieved memories, the frequency and characteristics of nonbelieved memories were surveyed (Mazzoni, Scoboria,