Abstract
The dichotomy between ‘truth’ and ‘falsity’ in relation to memory is difficult to clearly sustain. The veridicality of memory is typically established by drawing on the local, normative procedures that operate in a given setting (e.g. legal, clinical, social). Since all procedures are strictly relative, all memories are technically either ‘relatively falsified’ or ‘relatively as-yet-unfalsified’. False memory studies claim to be able explain the production of false memories, but do not offer criterion to effectively differentiate populations of so-called ‘true’ and ‘false’ victims. The narrative of the discovery of the ‘false memories’ themselves is inconsistent and demonstrates a significant level of imagination inflation and suggestibility to dominant narratives in post-war psychology. In attending to the setting specificity of memory, researchers may wish to consider how their work impacts on the experience–ecologies to which they contribute.
Highlights
A sixteen year-old young man is convicted of participating in the brutal rape and murder of woman, along with his uncle
A good starting place is with the distinction between truth and falsity on which the conceptualization of ‘false memory’ stands
If false memory research does not demonstrate the implantation of ‘false memories of child sexual abuse’, what can we say about what it does show and the way it arrives at those demonstrations? As befitting someone who is at the apex of their career, Loftus has published numerous overviews of the development of the field and the centrality of her role (e.g. Loftus, 2013; Loftus, 2000; Loftus & Ketcham, 1995)
Summary
A sixteen year-old young man is convicted of participating in the brutal rape and murder of woman, along with his uncle. Filmed footage of the police interviews, conducted without the presence of a lawyer or family member, appear to show the investigators guiding and shaping a narrative for the young man At times they provide crucial details that they ask him to confirm. We call instead for an attention to the setting-specificity of remembering, where memory is approached as a property of jointly-managed activities that occur in a definite time and place, and which have their own distinct norms and procedures as to what constitutes ‘truth’ and ‘falsity’ (see Brown & Reavey, 2015) Applying this approach to the psychology of memory itself allows us to reflexively question the complex relationship that psychologists have to the history of the discipline in which they are formed and located
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