Can a Survey of British False Memory Society Members Reliably Inform the Recovered Memory Debate?

✍ Scribed by Bernice Andrews

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 301 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0888-4080
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199702)11:1<19::aid-acp428>3.0.co;2-u

✦ Synopsis

Gudjonsson has conducted a timely and welcome survey of BFMS members, who are to be commended for their frank responses. However, their answers can provide only partial information about the nature, circumstances and consequences of recovered memories. Attention is drawn to features of the way the data are presented that could result in potentially misleading conclusions. The unsystematic inclusion and exclusion of missing values has resulted in inflated frequencies when missing data are excluded from overall proportions. Furthermore, nearly a third of respondents were not sure, or denied, that recovered memories were involved in the accusations. The data are presented with no distinction between these respondents and respondents reporting clear recovered memory accusations.