Twins dispute memory ownership: A new false memory phenomenon

Twins dispute memory ownership: a new false memory phenomenon.

In three experiments, we examined a new memory phenomenon: disputed memories, in which people dispute ownership of a memory. For example, in one disputed memory each of two twins recollected being sent home from school for wearing too short a skirt, although only one of them was actually sent home. In Experiment 1, 20 sets of same-sex adult twins were asked to produce a memory for each of 45 wo...

Implicit Memory versus False Memory

Memory distortion and false memory creation.

The 1990s have brought to public attention thousands of cases that began when a grown-up daughter or son walked into a therapist's office seeking help for depression, low self-esteem, or any of a number of life's problems. Many of these cases grew to involve memories of childhood sexual abuse recovered while in therapy--memories that did not exist, or at least were not remembered, before therap...

Emotion and False Memory

Emotional memories are vivid and lasting but not necessarily accurate. Under some conditions, emotion even increases people’s susceptibility to false memories. This review addresses when and why emotion leaves people vulnerable to misremembering events. Recent research suggests that pregoal emotions—those experienced before goal attainment or failure (e.g., hope, fear)—narrow the scope of peopl...

Emotion and False Memory

False memories are influenced by a variety of factors, but emotion is a variable of special significance, for theoretical and practical reasons. Interestingly, emotion’s effects on false memory depend on whether it is embedded in the content of to-be-remembered events or in our moods, where mood is an aspect of the context in which events are encoded. We sketch the theoretical basis for this co...