The Debate About Whether Recovered Memories are False or Genuine.

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The Debate About Whether Recovered

Memories are False or Genuine

The debate about how accurate recovered memories are has been a heated one for some time, especially since a number of high profile cases of people recovering traumatic experiences (often sexual abuse) occurred in the 80's and 90's. Although many experiments have been done to try and determine whether most recovered memories are false or genuine, these results have no reliability. This is due to the fact that participants have to be relied upon to remember in detail memories from several years ago, and not to give answers affected by their social desirability or their beliefs about what the experimenter wishes them to say. Psychologists on both sides of the debate use this argument as a reason not to believe the opposite opinions. Therefore this debate has a high profile and is also one that is not likely to be settled any time soon.

False memory syndrome involves people recalling incidents and events, often traumatic, which turn out to be entirely false. However the people actually believe what they are recalling, they are not making it up consciously. Many cases involve sexual abuse, and so