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Cognitive Underpinnings of Recovered Memories of Childhood Abuse

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True and False Recovered Memories

Part of the book series: Nebraska Symposium on Motivation ((NSM,volume 58))

Abstract

Recent research on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse has shown that there are at least two types of recovered memory experiences: those that are gradually recovered within the context of suggestive therapy and those that are spontaneously recovered, without extensive prompting or explicit attempts to reconstruct the past. These recovered memory experiences have different origins, with people who recover memories through suggestive therapy being more prone to forming false memories, and with people who report spontaneously recovered memories being more prone to forgetting prior instances of remembering. Additionally, the two types of recovered memory experiences are linked to differences in corroborative evidence, implying that memories recovered spontaneously, outside of suggestive therapy, are more likely to correspond to genuine abuse events. This chapter highlights the background of the recovered memory debate, summarizes recent studies with individuals reporting recovered memory experiences and points towards applications in the justice system and in clinical practice.

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Acknowledgment

Elke Geraerts was supported by a grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO 451 07 004).

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  1. Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

    Elke Geraerts

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  1. Elke Geraerts
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Correspondence to Elke Geraerts .

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  1. , Dept of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Burnett Hall 223, Lincoln, 68588, Nebraska, USA

    Robert F. Belli

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Geraerts, E. (2012). Cognitive Underpinnings of Recovered Memories of Childhood Abuse. In: Belli, R. (eds) True and False Recovered Memories. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, vol 58. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1195-6_6

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