In this commentary, we respond to Herrmann and Yoder's call for a cessation of memory implantation research with children. Although we agree that it is important to safeguard subjects from harm, we argue that Herrmann and Yoder's denunciation of this ยฎeld of research is not empirically or logically grounded. We point out that these authors have conยฏated memory-impairment research with risks that have nothing to do with memory-impairment research, that they have inappropriately focused on a single negative occurrence from a non-memory study, and in their haste to decry the possible costs of memory-implantation research, they have ignored the costs of not doing this type of research. In this paper, we brieยฏy review the longstanding discussion of ethical issues involving the use of children and other special populations as research subjects in studies of autobiographical research, and against this backdrop we analyse the speciยฎc as well as implied arguments that Herrmann and Yoder bring to this discussion.
POINTS WE ALL CAN AGREE WITH
All of us can agree with Herrmann and Yoder's claim that children represent a special population that can be expected to react dierently from adults. As argued, children's specialness can render them both more and less vulnerable to research risks than adults, depending on a host of situational and developmental factors. Further, we can all agree with Herrmann and Yoder's claim that when children serve as subjects in studies, researchers `need to be especially cautious'. In this paper, we describe the cautions that developmental researchers show in their studies of memory implantation.
We also agree, in principle, with Herrmann and Yoder's suggestion that an armative showing that participation in memory-impairment research does not harm children is a valuable endeavour. But such a demonstration is equally valuable for all forms of research, because, as we argue here, there is no evidence to indicate that memory-implantation research poses a greater risk than other types of developmental research.