Doctoral Dissertation Research: Memories of Childhood: True versus False Reports

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Goodman 9619034 The current debate concerning the validity of recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse has significant theoretical and legal implications. This research promises to answer several important questions pertinent to the debate. First, what are the effects of interviewers' expectancies on adults' true and false reports of childhood events? Second, what are the effects of guided visualizations combined with high expectancy on recovering memories of childhood. Third, what distinguishes adults true from false memories?, What are laypeople's abilities to discriminate between true and false memories? And, finally, what individual differences are important in the creation of false reports of childhood events. Two experiments focusing on expectancy and visualization and their effects on false reports are being conducted. Community residents and college students serve as participants. Family members provide information about childhood events and false memories are created by the investigators. Analyses of variance and correlational methods are used to analyze the data. The results will provide fundamental information about reconstructive memory as well as shed light on the current legal controversy regarding false memory. %%% The current debate concerning the validity of recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse has significant theoretical and legal implications. This research promises to answer several important questions pertinent to the debate. First, what are the effects of interviewers' expectancies on adults' true and false reports of childhood events? Second, what are the effects of guided visualizations combined with high expectancy on recovering memories of childhood. Third, what distinguishes adults true from false memories?, What are laypeople's abilities to discriminate between true and false memories? And, finally, what individual differences are important in the creation of false reports of childhood events. Two experiments focusing on expectancy and visualization and their effects on false reports are being conducted. Community residents and college students serve as participants. Family members provide information about childhood events and false memories are created by the investigators. Analyses of variance and correlational methods are used to analyze the data. The results will provide fundamental information about reconstructive memory as well as shed light on the current legal controversy regarding false memory. ***