In the Roediger & McDermott study, they attempted to study undergraduate students to see how and why they remembered lists of associated words differently. They write, "Most evidence has been collected in paradigms that use sentences, prose passages, slide sequences, or videotapes" (Roediger & McDermott, 1995, p
The issue must never become part of law unless such claims are made fool proof and verifiable without use of drugs and hypnosis. (Elbow, 2010) 5) Conclusion On account of the foregoing facts and opinions enumerated that show the evidence of recalled memories may be totally false, the law must prohibit acting on them and taking it into evidence
3) Why this is a problem There are a great number of issues, that relate to the nature of memory, 'the role of hypnosis in therapy to recover memories, the personality characteristics of client and therapist, and factors of suggestibility and absorption and if memories are recovered. (Gow, 1998) The psychiatric community is divided about the possibility of memories recovered in therapy of being accurate or false; and some examples of these are the notorious UFO abduction reports, past life therapy reports, and many more like 'multiple personality disorders and satanic ritual abuse' and so on
As a result, these same therapists have unwittingly promoted the development of a real memory disorder: False Memory Syndrome." (Hochman, 2012) Dr
The authors point out that they are indeed qualified to write The Myth of Repressed Memory, which, although ironically a trade book, is predicated on scholarly research and case study. In Chapter 2, the author asserts, "I am considered an authority on the malleability of memory, I've testified in hundreds of court cases where a person's fate depended on whether the jury believed" the testimony or not (Loftus & Ketcham, 1994, p
Or at least it doesn't happen with regards to repressing childhood sexual abuse. In spite of, or because of, what Loftus and Ketcham claim, "the scientific validity of dissociative amnesia has remained contested ground," (Pettus, 2008)