This is a really long yet fascinating look at how psychoanalysts can fabricate memories in the minds of their patients. Apparently there is a growing trend for adults with superficially healthy relationships with their families to go into therapy and suddenly remember parental sexual abuse.
"Therapists used hypnosis, sodium amenthol, guided imagery, dream interpretation, relaxation exercises. These are very dangerous techniques to use if undertaken in the expectation you can excavate historically accurate memories.”
"In an extra-credit homework assignment, for example, Loftus’ students went home and said to younger siblings things as simple as “Hey, do you remember the time you got lost in the mall when you were 5 years old?” and then recorded the ways in which the “memory” would take on a life of its own in the succeeding days, becoming more vivid, more detailed, with each conversation. At a more advanced level, using research subjects in a lab, students successfully created memories of mildly traumatic childhood experiences — such as being temporarily separated from one’s parents — that never actually occurred... In another experiment, to make sure they were dealing with false recollections rather than real ones, research assistants created memories about meeting Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, who, in reality, couldn’t possibly have been in the theme park. The purpose of these mind games is to show that even the most vivid memory is not necessarily an accurate representation of past reality."
I went to a presentation on snail memory formation last year and was blown away. Apparently memory formation is slowed by coldness. They tested this by polking the snail with a stick when it came up for air a few times then freezxing some snails and seeing which ones remembered not to come up for air. Apparently the ethics committee doesnt think highly of gastropods but it was really fascinating regardless.
Posted by bluprnt at August 19, 2004 03:34 PM