PSYCHOLOGY Concepts and Theories: Memories

Showing posts with label Memories. Show all posts

Friday, May 7, 2021

Recovered Memory

A recovered memory is an experience of remembering a traumatic event that could not be recalled previously. Until the recovery, the person may not have been aware that the remembered traumatic event occurred.

The existence of recovered memories is controversial. One challenge to the accuracy of the experience of recovered memory can be understanding the role of a psychotherapist in suggesting or evoking a remembrance during the course of therapy.

Recovered memories are sometimes called repressed memories.

False Memories and Psychology

My mother was a devout Christian. Once the spoke about my baptism. In my memory, the time and place were different than what she said. When I got home, I looked up the event in old photos, which confirmed my memory. She had correctly recalled the fact that I was baptized but her memory was distorted.

A false memory is the recall of an event that did not happen. Such memories appear real to the person and the contents can be quite vivid.

A distorted memory may also be called a false memory. Distorted memories involve errors such as incorrect details, facts, or events.

As a psychologist, I administered tests of memory to many children and adults. Actually, any response to a question relies on recall, but psychologists may not know if the response is accurate. In testing, a patient is asked to remember specific things, which allows a psychologist to record the number of items they got correct and compare their score with others of the same age. We can also compare their score with earlier scores if they had the same test years ago.

Researchers have documented the existence of false memories by presenting participants with a false memory and later testing for recall of the implanted memory.

The problems of the accuracy of memory can be important in legal cases when the memory of an eyewitness is crucial. Research by psychological scientist Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California at Irvine and others quickly became relevant to those of us evaluating children and adults who reported being abused. (See examples of research articles below.)

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Books to read

The Malleability of Memory: A conversation with Elizabeth Loftus (Burton)

The Myth of Repressed Memory (Loftus & Ketcham)

The Seven Sins of Memory (Daniel Schacter)

Picking Cotton (Thompson-Cannino et al.) [A false memory led to a false conviction]

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Please check out my website www.suttong.com

and see my books on AMAZON or GOOGLE STORE

See also recovered memory

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Loftus, E. F. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. American Psychologist, 48(5), 518–537. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.48.5.518

Loftus, E. F., & Ketcham, K. (1994). The myth of repressed memory: False memories and allegations of sexual abuse. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Loftus, E. F., & Pickrell, J. E. (1995). The formation of false memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25(12), 720–725. https://doi.org/10.3928/0048-5713-19951201-07

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Also, consider connecting with me on FACEBOOK Geoff W. Sutton

X @Geoff.W.Sutton

You can read many published articles at no charge:

Academia Geoff W Sutton ResearchGate Geoffrey W Sutton

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Mentalscape- Psychology Concept

Mentalscape refers to the cognitions present in mind as described by a person as if they were describing what they are watching in a short video.

In the context of a meaningful conversation, a person might ask another what they are thinking. The response reveals their mentalscape. A lengthy response might be more like the description of a video instead of a still image. Mentalscapes are more like paintings or creative videos than those taken by a camera because the person describing the scene interprets their world based on their memories, experiences, cognitive biases and so forth. Memory is dynamic. We interact with our memories. When we speak about them, they are created works albeit often, but not always, based on real life experiences.

The mentalscape reveals the patterns of thought. The patterns are schemes or schemata that organize categories of information or concepts and the relationships among them.

In psychotherapy, a clinician may ask a client to describe an experience. That experience becomes present in the mind and becomes the current mentalscape. The memory is viewed in the present as if the client were describing a scene, but neither the clinician nor the client has direct access to the original, untouched, external event.

Memories, Mentalscape, scheme