Recalling more childhood events leads to judgments of poorer memory: Implications for the recovered/false memory debate

318 Adults claiming to have recovered hidden memories of being sexually abused as children have raised considerable controversy regarding whether any particular claim is genuine or is rather the result of suggestions introduced through the course of psychotherapy or by reading self-help books (Belli & Loftus, 1994, 1996; Berliner & Williams, 1994; Lindsay & Read, 1994). One facet of this debate has focused on the extent to which amnesia for childhood events is a valid predictor of one’s having been sexually abused during childhood. Specialists of dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly referred to as multiple personality disorder (MPD), often consider a history of childhood sexual abuse to be a major factor in the onset of the disorder and argue that amnesia for episodes of the childhood abuse is one likely symptom (Coons, 1994; Putnam, Guroff, Silberman, Barban, & Post, 1986; Ross et al., 1991). Some psychotherapists encourage the use of memory recovery techniques, such as hypnosis, dream interpretation, and other therapeutic techniques, to reveal hidden memories that are repressed as a result of suspected abuse (Bass & Davis, 1988; Courtois, 1991; Edwards, 1987). Claims regarding the relationship between amnesia and childhood sexual abuse are open to criticism, however. Although amnesia for traumatic events such as childhood sexual abuse clearly can occur (Briere & Conte, 1993; Freyd, 1996; Scheflin & Brown, 1996), it is questionable whether such amnesia cannot be accounted for in terms of normal mechanisms of forgetting (see Shobe & Kihlstrom, 1997). Furthermore, the determination of the presence of amnesia does not appear to be based on any firm, objective criteria (Read, 1997; Read & Lindsay, 1994). One difficulty is that there exist no clearly established norms for determining the degree of autobiographical memory loss that is to be expected in those who suffer amnesia from childhood sexual abuse. There is work which indicates that memory for childhood events is impaired in persons who suffer organic amnesia from physical traumas, but these amnesic individuals remember the more remote childhood events even better than more recent events, a pattern that is opposite to that of normal controls who remember the more recent events best (Kopelman, Wilson, & Baddeley, 1989; Zola-Morgan, Cohen, & Squire, 1983). Importantly, the pattern for psychogenic amnesia that is hypothesized to result from childhood Portions of this work were presented at the second International Conference on Memory, held at the University of Padua, in July 1996. We thank Chris Brewin, Ira Hyman, John Gomez, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Any shortcomings are entirely our own, and we assume full responsibility for them. Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to R. F. Belli, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248 (e-mail: [email protected]). Recalling more childhood events leads to judgments of poorer memory: Implications for the recovered/false memory debate