SCIE​
AS Psychology
Discussion Answers
Loftus and Pickrell - False Memories
The study looks at whether it is possible to create memories of things which never happened. Many previous Loftus reserach studies have attempted to manipulate memories of eye witnesses.
This study is trying to go one step further and actually create a memory - of being lost as a child in a shopping mall - of an event which never happened.
The issue relates to the reliability of memory, most notably as testimony given relating to events which took place in the distant past.
Discussion Questions
Study Summary
Original
Study
Key Resources for Download
From False Memory Syndrome Society Newsletter - Winter 2011:
They said it couldn't be done -- a third-party lawsuit against therapists.[1] But Karen and Charles Johnson proved the naysayers wrong. At 12:30 a.m. on January 23, 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin, a jury of two men and ten women returned a verdict that Kay Phillips, Ph.D., and Jeffrey Hollowell, MD, had been negligent in their treatment of the Johnsons' daughter Charlotte. Under their care, Charlotte had developed the beliefs that she had been forced to participate in satanic rituals and that her parents had tried to murder her. After 15 years traveling through the legal system, the Johnsons were finally able to tell their side of the story. When they did tell their story, a jury awarded them $1 million.