Recovered_Memories

“Sudden recall: adult memories of child abuse spark a heated debate,” is an article that first debuted in an issue of Science News of September 18, 1993. The article starts off by providing two examples of people who experienced recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. The first example curtailed how Mel Gavigan recalls a memory of sexual abuse after a she was a patient at a psychiatric hospital suffering from depression. Her therapists insisted that she showed signs of having been sexually abused during childhood and terrible memories of this trauma soon resurfaced from deep within her unconscious mind. It is thought that Gavigan wanted to please her therapist, and after a few sessions she reported that her father had raped her when she was 4 years old. Soon after confronting her parents about these recovered memories, she left the hospital and started seeing a new therapists and she came to realize that the memories were false and untrue. For the second example, Claudia had the sudden recall of childhood sexual abuse but this case took an entirely different turn. She had recently loss more than 100 pounds and started experiencing flashbacks of her older brother sexually abusing her. She joined a therapy group and even more memories were recovered. She was able to date the abuse back to when she was 4 years old. When her memories resurfaced her brother was already deceased but she was able to validate her memories through items found in his closet. Inside the closet she found a large pornography collection, handcuffs, and a diary in which her brother had extensively planned and recorded all that he had done to her. The article goes on to discuss how the two cases had two different extreme outcomes and raises the question as to whether recovered memories are reliable, as it appears that one’s mind can be so easily manipulated. It gave insight as to how memory works and can thoughts that have been repressed for so long be trusted. There were some researchers who believe that recovered memories are accurate and reliable while there are others who strongly disagree. It shows how often times these memories are surge back and seem so genuine that the person is convinced it actually occurred, which is true in some cases. Before I divulge into my thoughts on the article, I believe it is necessary to have a little background information for one to understand memory and how it works. This brief history will help formulate my opinions on the article and recovered memories. Memory is the retention of, and ability to recall, information, personal experiences, and procedures or our skills and habits. There is no universally agreed upon model of the mind/brain, and no universally agreed upon model of how memory works. However, a good model for how memory works must be consistent with the subjective nature of consciousness and with what is known from scientific studies. Our ability to recall memory entails three important components: Memories are constructions made in accordance with present needs, desires, influences, etc., memories are often accompanied by emotions and feelings, and memory usually involves awareness of the memory (Carroll 2009). There are different degrees of memory loss and how quickly one is able to recover them. It is said that the reasoning for this phenomenon is due to multiple reasons. There is the issue of weak encoding, lack of retrieval cue, time and the replacement in the neural network by later experiences, repetitive experiences, and a drive to keep us sane. An additional reason as to why we forget is said to be the fact that we have dreams (Carroll 2009). Though all forgetting is a type of amnesia, we usually reserve that term for forgetting that is caused by the effects of drugs/alcohol, brain injuries, or physical or psychological traumas. There are different forms of amnesia that any person can experience. Limited amnesia, however, is quite common. Limited amnesia occurs in people who suffer a severe physical or psychological trauma, such as a concussion or being rendered unconscious. Football players who suffer concussions, and accident victims who are rendered unconscious, typically do not remember what happened immediately before the event. The scientific evidence indicates, however, that some sort of implicit memory may exist, which can be troubling to one whose amnesia is due to having been rendered unconscious by an assailant (Carroll 2009). Implicit memory is memory without awareness. It differs substantially from repressed memory. Implicit memories are not necessarily repressed, nor are they necessarily the result of trauma. They are weakly encoded memories which can affect conscious thought and behavior. Retrieval cues do not bring about a complete memory of some events because most of the event was not encoded (Carroll 2009). Repressed memory is according to some theories of psychology, a memory, that often of a traumatic nature, of an event or environment, which is stored by the unconscious mind but outside the awareness of the conscious mind. The repressed memory concept was popularized during the 1980s and 1990s; often being closely associated with recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse and high-profile court cases. However, the subject repressed memories suffered a backlash that was mostly created and shaped by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (Carroll 2009). Most lost memories are lost because they were never elaborately encoded. Perception is mostly a filtering and defragmenting process. Our interests and needs affect perception, but most of what is available to us as potential sense data will never be processed. And most of what is processed will be forgotten. Amnesia is not rare, but is the standard condition of the human species. We do not forget simply to avoid being reminded of unpleasant things. We forget either because we did not perceive closely in the first place or we did not encode the experience either in the parietal lobes of the cortical surface, which is for short-term or working memory or in the prefrontal lobe, which is for long-term memory (Carroll 2009). Long-term memory requires elaborative encoding in the inner part of the temporal lobes. If the left inferior prefrontal lobe is damaged or undeveloped, there will be grave difficulty with elaborative encoding. This area of the brain is undeveloped in very young children under the age of three. Hence, it is very unlikely that any story of having a memory of life in the cradle or in the womb is accurate. The brains of infants and very young children are capable of storing fragmented memories, however. Such memories cannot be explicit or deeply encoded, but they can nevertheless have influence. In fact, there are numerous situations where memory can be manifested without awareness of remembering (Carroll 2009). Memory researchers distinguish several types of memory systems. Semantic memory contains conceptual and factual knowledge. Procedural memory allows us to learn new skills and acquire habits. Episodic memory allows us to recall personal incidents that uniquely define our lives. Another important distinction is that between field and observer memory. Field memories are those where one sees oneself in the scene. Observer memories are those seen through one's own eyes. The fact that many memories are field memories is evidence, as Freud noted, of the reconstructive nature of memories (Carroll 2009). How accurate and reliable is memory' Studies on memory have shown that we often construct our memories after the fact that we are susceptible to suggestions from others that help us fill in the gaps in our memories. That is why, for example, a police officer investigating a crime should not show a picture of a single individual to a victim and ask if the victim recognizes the assailant. If the victim is then presented with a line-up and picks out the individual whose picture the victim had been shown, there is no way of knowing whether the victim is remembering the assailant or the picture (Carroll 2009). Another interesting fact about memory is that studies have shown that there is no significant correlation between the subjective feeling of certainty a person has about a memory and the memory being accurate. Also, contrary to what many people believe, hypnosis does not aid memory's accuracy. Because subjects are extremely suggestible while hypnotized, most states do not allow as evidence in a court of law testimony made while under hypnosis (Carroll 2009). Furthermore, it is possible to create false memories in people's minds by suggestion, even false memories of previous lives. Memory is so malleable that we should be very cautious in claiming certainty about any given memory without corroborative evidence. Researchers have found that false memories can be created by manipulating photos of historical events. The doctored images can be used inadvertently or intentionally to alter the memory of the event and affect beliefs and future behaviors (Carroll 2009). After I read the article, I had mixed thoughts on the topic of recovered memories. I personally believe that it is possible for a person to experience something so traumatic that they are able to bury it so deep within that they seem to forget that these experiences ever occurred. In these cases it seems the person wants to go on as if the event never took place. With that being said it is clearly possible for one to have recovered memories that are false, as to Mel in the article. Sometimes, when people hear other’s stories and experiences they become embedded in our own memories. When these thoughts form sometimes depending on how and where they are encoded, we may start to believe that those experiences are actually our own. I believe that this phenomenon occurs more often with people who are experiencing other issues, also. When it comes down to using recovered memories in court cases it is especially impertinent that the information be true, because this is someone’s life in stake. If there isn’t sufficient evidence to validate these memories, they should not be heard and deemed reliable. I know that there isn’t always evidence in sexual abuse cases, even if the abuse actually occurred. If the person comes forth years later, when the time lapse is so long, it is only normal to question them and their reliability. In conclusion, I believe that some people do experience recovered memories that are actually true, while there are those that are not true. I don’t think that the recovered memories of people should be discounted only because there have been incidents were they were proven false. Some people really do experience things in their lives that are so traumatic that they repress these thoughts, so they can live their lives the best that they can. So, it is best to use extreme caution when dealing with recovered memories, because it is evident that memory is fragile. Work Cited Brower, Bruce. (September 18, 1993). Sudden recall: adult memories of child abuse spark a heated debate. Science News. Retrieved from: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Sudden+recall%3a+adult+memories+of+child+abuse+spark+a+heated+debate.-a014458675 Carroll, Robert. (2009). Memory. The Skeptic’s Dictionary. Retrieved from: http://skepdic.com/memory.html