In the present research, two studies test the efficacy of an innovative procedure designed to reduce distortion and enhance communication of accurate childhood memories. One hundred two 7-year-olds participated in a staged activity and were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions . Two weeks later, half of the children participated in the innovative procedure designed to increase resistance to misleading questions by addressing sociolinguistic and socioemotional factors thought to promote acquiescence to misinformation. The other half of (...) the children participated in control sessions and were given motivating instructions to do their best. Then, memory for the staged activity was tested in an interview with an unfamiliar authority figure. The results of both studies suggest that the children who participated in the innovative procedure made significantly fewer errors in response to misleading questions than children in the control groups, hence diminishing acquiescence. This was accomplished without generating additional errors on the other question types. These findings are interpreted as a promising first step toward reducing the potential for distortion in the recall of childhood memories. Implications for adult recall of childhood trauma are discussed. (shrink)

These authors describe their relationships with nature and childhood in the context of major Western traditions of philosophy and religion.

Engaging philosophy with history, literature, film and testimony, this book examines the critical relationship between white Australian identity and the cultural priority of childhood in Australia.

The veracity of children′s memory is frequently doubted because it is assumed that first, children′s memory is generally not very good, and second, children and their memories are too vulnerable to suggestibility to be credible. In this article these two assumptions are evaluated and three experiments are presented that address constraints on the construct of suggestibility. In the first experiment, it is reported that memory for a more frequently occurring event is more resistant to suggestibility than is memory for (...) an event experienced only once. This finding is especially relevant to memory for child abuse as it is common for perpetrators to frequently abuse the same child. In two additional experiments it is reported that it is relatively difficult to suggest to a child that something occurred when it did not. These results suggest that although memories for childhood events may be imperfect, they are not likely to be confabulated. (shrink)

To improve upon previous methodology, participants in musically induced happy, sad, or neutral moods were asked to recall childhood and recent autobiographical memories in response to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral word cues. Symmetrical mood-congruent memory effects were observed when events were rated from the perspective of when they actually occurred (i.e., then), because memories rated as being unpleasant then tended to be rated as more pleasant now. Finally, pleasant and unpleasant cue words facilitated retrieval of childhood (...) memories more than did neutral cues. These findings suggest that symmetrical mood congruence can be observed when accounting for such factors as the valence of retrieval cues and the perspective from which experiences are rated, given that memories appear to undergo change in affective labelling. (shrink)

Does infantile amnesia exist? Can children accurately recall traumatic events? Do memory's organizing, storage, and retrieval mechanisms change during childhood development? Through a thorough examination of recent scientific evidence, The Fate of Early Memories divorces fact from fiction regarding the nature, durability, and fallibility of memory.

Presents a contemporary philosophical reading of the American Psychological Association Memories of Childhood Abuse report. First, background on the nature of the report is given and then the philosophical approach taken towards the reading itself is discussed. The "philosophical reading" of the report is not an attempt to resolve the debate and the authors therefore do not take sides. Instead, the authors read the document as a disciplinary cultural artifact—a resource about psychology as a theoretical, epistemological, cultural, and (...) political enterprise—rather than simply a statement of contemporary knowledge on memories of child abuse. In the critical reading of the Report, 4 themes are highlighted that characterize the approach of both the clinical and research subgroup, and thus the Report as a whole. These 4 themes are problematic grounding in positivist science, problematic understanding of memory as monism and mechanism, problematic understanding of truth, and a problematic view of a disciplinary community. In the presentation of each theme, the authors speak to the implications of the theme, both for what psychology has been and for what it could become. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

A reconstruction of Leonardo's emotional life from his earliest years, it represents Freud's first sustained venture into biography from a psychoanalytic perspective, and also his effort to trace one route that homosexual development can take.

Extending a strategy previously used by Clancy, Schacter, McNally, and Pitman , we administered a neutral and a trauma-related version of the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm to a sample of women reporting recovered or repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse , women reporting having always remembered their abuse , and women reporting no history of abuse . We found that individuals reporting recovered memories of CSA are more prone than other participants to falsely recalling and recognizing neutral words that (...) were never presented. Moreover, our study is the first to show that this finding even held when trauma-related material was involved. Correlational analyses revealed that fantasy proneness, but not self-reported traumatic experiences and dissociative symptoms were related to false recall and false recognition. (shrink)

Sigmund Freud was already internationally acclaimed as the principal founder of psychoanalysis when he turned his attention to the life of Leonardo da Vinci. It remained Freud’s favourite composition. Compressing many of his insights into a few pages, the result is a fascinating picture of some of Freud’s fundamental ideas, including human sexuality, dreams, and repression. It is an equally compelling – and controversial – portrait of Leonardo and the creative forces that according to Freud lie behind some of his (...) great works, including the Mona Lisa. With a new foreword by Maria Walsh.  . (shrink)

How likely is it that traumatic childhood events are misremembered or forgotten? Research on children′s recollections of painful or frightening medical procedures may help answer this question by identifying predictors of accurate versus inaccurate memory. In the present study, 46 3- to 10-year-old children were interviewed after undergoing a stressful medical procedure involving urethral catheterization. Age differences in memory emerged, especially when comparing 3- to 4-year-olds with older children. Children′s understanding of the event, parental communication and emotional support, and (...) children′s own emotional reactions also predicted accuracy. Memory did not reliably vary for children who endured the medical procedure once versus multiple times. Results are discussed in relation to possible precursors of accurate and false memories, and forgetting, of traumatic events experienced in childhood. (shrink)

Based on the dual mechanisms of control theory, there are two distinct mechanisms of cognitive control, proactive and reactive control. Importantly, accumulating evidence indicates that there is a developmental shift from predominantly using reactive control to proactive control during childhood, and the engagement of proactive control emerges as early as 5–7 years old. However, less is known about whether and how proactive control at this early age stage is associated with children’s other cognitive abilities such as working memory and (...) math ability. To address this issue, the current study recruited 98 Chinese children under 5–7 years old. Among them, a total of 81 children contributed useable data for the assessments of cognitive control, working memory, and math ability. The results revealed that children at this age period predominantly employed a pattern of proactive control during an AX-Continuous Performance Task. Moreover, the proactive control index estimated by this task was positively associated with both working memory and math performance. Further regression analysis showed that proactive control accounted for significant additional variance in predicting math performance after controlling for working memory. Most interestingly, mediation analysis showed that proactive control significantly mediated the association between working memory and math performance. This suggests that as working memory increases so does proactive control, which may in turn improve math ability in early childhood. Our findings may have important implications for educational practice. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo analiza la construcción de la infancia en las novelas El mercurio (1968), El río de la luna (1981) y Esta pared de hielo (2005), de José María Guelbenzu, a la luz de los conceptos mítico-simbólicos de Bachelard y Durand para demostrar que funciona como un absoluto primigenio al que se busca volver constantemente, pues resguarda a los personajes hasta el inminente choque con la realidad adulta. Esto para concluir que desde la adultez los personajes observan la infancia (...) con el anhelo de volver allí, lo que tiene una función paliativa mediante la memoria y la palabra, por ello, la narrativa de Guelbenzu plantea regresar al ámbito infantil desde las imágenes literarias y así conservar ese mundo de fantasía. Abstract This article analyzes the construction of childhood in the novels El mercurio (1968), El río de la luna (1981) and Esta pared de hielo (2005), by José María Guelbenzu, in the light of the mythical-symbolic concepts of Bachelard and Durand to demonstrate that it functions as a primitive absolute to which it is sought to return constantly, since it protects the characters until the imminent clash with adult reality. This to conclude that in their adulthood the characters observe childhood with the desire to return there, this has a palliative function through memory and word, therefore, Guelbenzu’s narrative proposes the return to the child environment trough literary images to preserve that world of fantasy. (shrink)

This is a systematic case study of the assessment and treatment of Anna, a woman presenting with posttraumatic stress disorder following a drug-facilitated sexual assault that occurred over twenty years earlier. She was also diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder. Treatment with cognitive therapy for PTSD and social phobia was supplemented by imagery rescripting of memories of childhood trauma within a schema therapy approach. The study documents how her intrusive memories of the rape were potentiated by early maladaptive (...) schemas that developed in response to abusive and neglectful parenting. Within a broader narrative, three examples of IR are described which show how, as an emotion-focused intervention, this approach discloses deeper memories and emotional states that are distressing and traumatic and allows them to be transformed through a healing process that is organic and displays what Bohart and Tallman call “self-organizing wisdom.”. (shrink)

Both the theory that traumatic childhood memories can be repressed, and the reliability of the techniques used to retrieve these memories are challenged in this paper. Questions are raised about the robustness of the theory and the literature that purports to provide scientific evidence for it. Evidence to this end is provided by the demographic and qualitative results of a research study conducted by the authors which surveyed New Zealand families in which one member had accused another (...) (or others) of sexual abuse on the basis of recovered memories. It is shown that a number of these allegations involve very low probability events. Since memory repression theory is not currently scientifically substantiated it is argued that care needs to be taken in the mental health, legal and insurance compensation arenas. Memories recalled during therapy may be treated as metaphorical but, in the absence of corroborative evidence, should not be considered factually true. Clinicians who wish to use memory recovery techniques should inform patients of their experimental and controversial nature, point out potential adverse effects, and obtain consent before proceeding. (shrink)

Both the theory that traumatic childhood memories can be repressed, and the reliability of the techniques used to retrieve these memories are challenged in this paper. Questions are raised about the robustness of the theory and the literature that purports to provide scientific evidence for it. Evidence to this end is provided by the demographic and qualitative results of a research study conducted by the authors which surveyed New Zealand families in which one member had accused another (...) of sexual abuse on the basis of recovered memories. It is shown that a number of these allegations involve very low probability events. Since memory repression theory is not currently scientifically substantiated it is argued that care needs to be taken in the mental health, legal and insurance compensation arenas. Memories recalled during therapy may be treated as metaphorical but, in the absence of corroborative evidence, should not be considered factually true. Clinicians who wish to use memory recovery techniques should inform patients of their experimental and controversial nature, point out potential adverse effects, and obtain consent before proceeding. (shrink)

_ _From the frozen landscapes of the Antarctic to the haunted houses of childhood, the memory of places we experience is fundamental to a sense of self. Drawing on influences as diverse as Merleau-Ponty, Freud, and J. G. Ballard, _The Memory of Place___ __charts the memorial landscape that is written into the body and its experience of the world._ Dylan Trigg’s _The Memory of Place_ _ __offers a lively and original intervention into contemporary debates within “place studies,” an interdisciplinary (...) field at the intersection of philosophy, geography, architecture, urban design, and environmental studies. Through a series of provocative investigations, Trigg analyzes monuments in the representation of public memory; “transitional” contexts, such as airports and highway rest stops; and the “ruins” of both memory and place in sites such as Auschwitz. While developing these original analyses, Trigg engages in thoughtful and innovative ways with the philosophical and literary tradition, from Gaston Bachelard to Pierre Nora, H. P. Lovecraft to Martin Heidegger. Breathing a strange new life into phenomenology, _The Memory of Place___ __argues that the eerie disquiet of the uncanny is at the core of the remembering body, and thus of ourselves. The result is a compelling and novel rethinking of memory and place that should spark new conversations across the field of place studies. Edward S. Casey, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University and widely recognized as the leading scholar on phenomenology of place, calls _The Memory of Place _“genuinely unique and a signal addition to phenomenological literature. It fills a significant gap, and it does so with eloquence and force.” He predicts that Trigg’s book will be “immediately recognized as a major original work in phenomenology.”. (shrink)

Moral bioenhancement is the attempt to improve human behavioral dispositions, especially in relation to the great ethical challenges of our age. To this end, scientists have hypothesised new molecules or even permanent changes in the genetic makeup to achieve such moral bioenhancement. The philosophical debate has focused on the permissibility and desirability of that enhancement and the possibility of making it mandatory, given the positive result that would follow. However, there might be another way to enhance the overall moral behavior (...) of us humans, namely that of targeting people with lower propensity to trust and altruism. Based on the theory of attachment, people who have a pattern of insecure attachment are less inclined to prosocial behavior. We know that these people are influenced by negative childhood memories: this negative emotional component may be erased or reduced by the administration of propranolol when the bad memory is reactivated, thereby improving prosocial skills. It could be objected that memory-editing might be a threat for the person’s identity and authenticity. However, if the notion of rigid identity is replaced by that of extended identity, this objection loses validity. If identity is understood as something that changes over time, moral bioenhancement through memory-editing seems indeed legitimate and even desirable. (shrink)

Both the theory that traumatic childhood memories can be repressed, and the reliability of the techniques used to retrieve these memories are challenged in this paper. Questions are raised about the robustness of the theory and the literature that purports to provide scientific evidence for it. Evidence to this end is provided by the demographic and qualitative results of a research study conducted by the authors which surveyed New Zealand families in which one member had accused another (...) (or others) of sexual abuse on the basis of recovered memories. It is shown that a number of these allegations involve very low probability events. Since memory repression theory is not currently scientifically substantiated it is argued that care needs to be taken in the mental health, legal and insurance compensation arenas. Memories recalled during therapy may be treated as metaphorical but, in the absence of corroborative evidence, should not be considered factually true. Clinicians who wish to use memory recovery techniques should inform patients of their experimental and controversial nature, point out potential adverse effects, and obtain consent before proceeding. (shrink)

The article attempts to show how memory influenced the formation of the unique spiritual identity of Edith Stein, who was born and grew up in the religious tradition of Judaism, but as an adult became the member of the Catholic Church. What seems to be unusual in her religious self-perception is the fact that despite conversion, Edith permanently regarded herself as a Jew and firmly claimed that she constantly belonged to the Jewish community. Her mind-set was immensely influenced by the (...) image of Jesus as a devout Jew portrayed in the New Testament, zealously practicing the sacred rites of Judaism, as well as her later analysis of the Christian and Jewish ways of worship. Her study exposed a deep bond linking Christianity with Judaism and by revealing this bond Edith Stein evoked the forgotten truth about the Jewish roots of Christianity which is deeply rooted in the faith of the Old Testament and draws a lot from the richness of its tradition. Undoubtedly, this important link reminded by Edith Stein, raised and developed later by the official teaching of the Catholic Church, was possible because she remembered the religious tradition in which she grew up and which she experienced in her childhood. Memory, therefore, became the constituent that shaped her own spiritual identity, but also contributed to the reinterpretation of the identity of the Christian community. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to outline a feminist philosophical approach to the current debate concerning (allegedly) false memories of childhood sexual abuse. Bringing the voices of feminist philosophers to bear on this issue highlights the implicit and sometimes questionable epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical-political commitments of some therapists and scientists involved in these debates. It also illuminates some current debates in and about feminist philosophy.

Cognitive science can help literary scholars formulate specific questions to be answered by archival research. This essay takes, as its starting point, embedded mental states (that is, mental states about mental states) and their role in generating literary subjectivity. It then follows the transformation of embedded mental states throughout several manuscripts of Christa Wolf’s autobiographical novel, Patterns of Childhood (Kindheitsmuster, 1976), available at the Berlin Academy of Arts. The author shows that later versions of Patterns of Childhood have (...) more complex embedments in the chapter describing the adolescent protagonist’s relationship with her schoolteacher. This textual development is integral to the process whereby the presumably authentic memories of the past are constructed to fit the present needs of the person who is doing the remembering. Accompanying the three case studies of the manuscript revision is a discussion of theoretical and practical implications of this “cognitive-archival” approach to literature. (shrink)

Counterfactual imaginings are known to have far reaching implications. In the present experiment, we ask if imagining events from one's past can affect memory for childhood events. We draw on the social psychology literature showing that imagining a future event increases the subjective likelihood that the event will occur. The concepts of cognitive availability and the source monitoring framework provide reasons to expect that imagination may inflate confidence that a childhood event occurred. However, people routinely produce myriad counterfactual (...) imaginings (i.e., daydreams and fantasies) but usually do not confuse them with past experiences. To determine the effects of imagining a childhood event, we pretested subjects on how confident they were that a number of childhood events had happened, asked them to imagine some of those events, and then gathered new confidence measures. For each of the target items, imagination inflated confidence that the event had occurred in childhood. We discuss implications for situations in which imagination is used as an aid in searching for presumably lost memories. (shrink)