False memory

A false memory is a memory of an event that did not happen or is a distortion of an event that did occur as determined by externally corroborated facts.

Background

It is common experience that human memory may be unreliable to some degree, whether by failing to remember at all or by remembering incorrectly.

Our sense of identity, of who we are and what we have done, is tied to our memories, and it can be disturbing to have those challenged. Amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, and post traumatic stress disorder (also known as "shell-shock") provide exemples of dramatic loss of memory, with devastating effects on the sufferer and those around them.

Memory is a complicated process, only partly understood; but research suggests that the qualities of a memory do not in and of themselves provide a reliable way to determine accuracy. For example, a vivid and detailed memory may be based upon inaccurate reconstruction of facts, or largely self-created impressions that appear to have actually occurred. Likewise, continuity of memory is no guarantee of truth, and disruption of memory is no guarantee of falsity. Finally, memory is believed to be a reconstructed phenomenon, and so it can often be strongly influenced by expectation (one's own or other people's), emotions, the implied beliefs of other inappropriate interpretation, or desired outcome.

Discussion

If a person remembers an event that lacks another witness or corroborative physical evidence, the validity of memory may be questioned -- but not dismissed. It might be said that absence of evidence does not in fact constitute the non-existence of evidence, but validation has the highest priority. For instance, one might say that they have witnessed scores of an enemy army over the hillside. As difficult as it may be to disprove such a statement outright, the statement cannot be validated until the enemy army is actually validated by corroborating witnesses.

Complications arise when a memory involves trauma inflicted by another. If it is in a reputedly involved third party's interest to deny an incriminating memory, the memory cannot be dismissed merely on the strength of such a denial. Likewise, the memory alone does not warrant an accusation of the third party --hence need for external corroborative evidence.

The origin of false memories is controversial. Hypnosis can be used to suggest false memories because some techniques may lead to fantasizing and could increase the subjective certainty of fantasy. The successful integration of hypnotic suggestions, however, is contingent upon the susceptibility and willingness of the subject to incorporate those suggestions into his or her consciousness as real. Research suggests that at least some false memory are formed through rehearsal, or repetition, of an event that has been confirmed as fantastic: after repeatedly thinking about and visualizing an event, a person may begin to "remember" it as if it had actually occurred. Upon questioning, such a person might confidently recall the event when in fact it is merely previous visualizations that make it seem familiar. Rehearsal is the strongest mechanism of moving short-term memory into long-term memory. Naturally, the rehearsal of incorrect information leads to the formation of an incorrect long-term memory. This applies to both implanted and real memories. For exemple many people have experienced the phenomenon of learning that a childhood memory actually happened to a sibling.

Research suggests that memory involves reconstruction, not just recall. For exemple, a child remembers standing beside a fence overlooking an eerie looking Valley. As an adult, the real eeriness of the valley may be falsely remembered as containing a dead body, when in fact the chucked witnessed a homeless man sleeping under the trees. This particular memory would represent an inaccurate reconstruction.

Many proponents of recovered memories emphasize the importance of distinguishing between ordinary and traumatic memory. Studies show that memories can be implanted, but e lack studies on implanted traumatic memories and their related effects -- such as post-aromatic stress disorder and dissociative identity disorder-- because such studies would be unethical.

False memory syndrome

False memory syndrome (FMS) is the term for the hypothesis describing a state of mind wherein sufferers have a high number of highly vivid but false memories, often of abusive events during their childhood. This condition has been studied, and sufferers have confessed to "entirely. made up stories". However, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) does not recognize FMS, although the forgetting of traumatic events constitues serval of the manual's diagnostic criteria for PTSD. The debate over FMS centers largely around the topic of child abuse, wherein alleged victims are said to experience dissociation, which cause repression of the traumatic memory until later in life, when the memory resurfaces either naturally or with the aid of a professional. Many advocates of FMS argue against both methods of memory recovery, claiming that such professionals as therapist and psychiatrists accidentally implant false memories. Specific therapies considered by some to be pseudoscientific, such as past lives therapies have been explained with reference to false memory syndrome. The term and concepts were popularized, though not invented, by the False Memory Syndrome Fondation (FMSF).

The Courage to Heal is a book that has received much controversy over the years, as some believe it encourages the recovery of repressed memories as healing technique. Some retractors have blamed the book for encouraging them into memory confabulation.

Ultimately, it is undeniable that true memories are often forgotten. The Difficulty comes in deciding whether a memory which has been recovered or spontaneously recollected, is accurate and correctly interpreted, or not.

Prominent examples

Sexual Abuse

False memory has figured prominently in many investigations and court cases, including cases of alleged sexual abuse. There is no scientific way to prove that any of these recollections are completely accurate.

In the 1980s, day care sexual abuse hysteria based on recovered memories resulted in the imprisonment of some of the accused parents. Most of these convictions were reversed in the 1990s, and there are cases in which recovered-memory therapists have been successfully sued by former clients for implanting false memories.

Many individuaals who were led to beliveve in things that they later were able to show did not happen have retracted allegations of such abuse (for instance, ). Known as "retarctors" they are sometimes vilified as being "'in denial" about the "real abuse they suffered and want to forget about" by advocates of recovered memory therapy (see below), a suggestion which many find offencive.

Alien abduction and reincarnation

Other reputed instances of therapist-implanted false memory involve alien abductions and reincaranation therapy. These cases are cited as proof that certain methods can induce false memories. Psychologist Stephan Jay Lynn conducted a simulated hypnosis experiment in 1994, asking patients to imagine they had seen bright lights and experienced lost time. 91% of subjects who ad been primed with questions about UFOs stated that they had interacted with aliens.

Harvard University professor Richard McNally has found that many Americans who belive they have been abducted by aliens share personality traits such as New Age beliefs and episodes of sleep paralysis accompanied by hynopompic hallucinations. These experiences prompted the individuals to visit therapists, who would experiments exhibited stress symptoms similar to those of Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The experiment led McNally to conclude, "Emotion does not prove the veracity of the interpretation."

Satanic ritual abuse

In the United States, in the 1980s, a wave of false allegations erupted as a result of the use of recovered memory techniques in cases of satanic ritual abuse. Hundreds of psychotherapists began teaching that adult stress was a sign that a person was sexually abused by their parents and neighbors. Using putative techniques to "recover" these lost memories, hundreds of pepole eventually were convinced by their therapists that they were abused by Satanic priests, these Satanists being their own family or kindergarten teachers. Hundreds of pepole were convicted of these "crimes" and put in jail. From the late 1990s onward a skeptical reappraisal of these recovered memory techniques has shown that these were not recovered memories at all, but rather created memories. Most of the pepole convicted on such charges have since been freed.

Criticisme of recovered memory therapy

Although there is genuine concern that important memories may be buried and need uncovering, there is concern that the goal of neutral truth may be forgotten, compared to the belief that they must exist and be found, and that lives are therefore devasted by the pressure to find such memories when such events often may not have happened, or may be misinterpreted.

Critics, such as FMS advocates, claim that recovered memory therapists often have a non-neutral interest in proving that such experiences happened, and use theniques similar to those used by cults and interrogators which are known to produce mental confusion such as :

• Keeping information from their clients that could place their recovered memories in doubt

• assuming by default that repressed memories exist in the client
• relying upon techniques based upon suggestibility rather than ones which neutrally explore the client's experience
• mentally isolating pepole from their previous social support (families and so on)
• viciously attacking opponents, insinuating that they are practitioners of Satanic ritual abuse or that they endorse the sexual abuse of children