False Memories: Cognitive Psychology

False Memories
Jessi Benanti
PSY 352: Cognitive Psychology
Dr. Christopher Wessinger
February 24, 2017
Page Break False Memories
Holly Ramona, who is a nineteen-year-old female that is a little troubled went to see a psychiatrist to help her with the eating disorder she was battling. Throughout her time in therapy, her psychotherapist, Marche Isabella believed she came across the memories that Holly has repressed of her father, Gary Ramona repletely sexually abusing her. Through the therapy sessions Marche Isabella would hypnotize Holly Ramona and also give her sodium amytal, which is also called a "truth serum" by doctors, although sodium amytal is not a truth serum. Due to the accusations of the sexually abusing
his daughter, Gary Ramona not only lost his career, but also his relationships with Holly and his other daughters, but also his marriage. There are is a vigorous debate on whether repressed memories are authentic and that these memories are not created by false memories. In vision you start seeing someone for one issue and all of a sudden you are "unlocking" all of these different memories you did not know you were there. Now in vision those memories were scary and very painful. It is unrealistic to imagine forgetting long-term suffering, but there are a few experts that suggest repressed memories are legitimate and repressed memories can happen to any individual. Other experts like Elizabeth Loftus believe with every certainty that repressed memories are implanted with false memories. The textbook talks about "suggestibility occurs when someone is led to a false recollection, perhaps through leading questions or others' suggestion" (Robinson-Riegler & Robinson-Riegler, 2012, Ch. 8.1). Within the case of Holly Ramona, only Holly and her father, Gary Ramona are the two people that know really truly know what occurred in the past between her and her father. Gary Ramona could have been lying to everyone and could have done all though repulsing acts to Holly or Holly could be suffering from false memories of when she was younger. Due to Holly believing she is reliving severe traumatic events, even though it just a false memory does not mean she is a lair. Humans can be veritable suggestible some more than other, but all it takes unlocking the gateway to the potentially that an event could have taken place and some individuals could immediately believe that it took place.
Studies on False Memories
Scholars long before Elizabeth Loftus started the movement of false confessions and false movement. Hugo Munsterberg was the chair of the chair of the psychology lab at Harvard American Psychological Association. Hugo was much more advanced than the rest in viewing just how others other suggestion can make individuals think they had done something horrific. Hugo began the power of suggestion progression in both the psychology field and the criminal justice field (Starr, 2015). Douglas Starr composes about Hugo Munsterberg and how he perceived that a young man in Chicago in 1906, ho was convicted of a brutal murder that he never could have could have committed due to the fact that he had an alibi (Starr, 2015). The boy was later hung before anybody could challenge the ruling. The Salem witch trial are another example that article talks about individuals being effortlessly influenced by suggestion. Another Scholar to come to some extremely fascinating conclusions about memory and how it is fallible is Daniel Schracter. Schracter talks about "adaptive constructive processes, which defines as processes that plays a functional role in memory and cognition, but production distortions, errors, or illusions as a consequence of doing so" (Schracter, 2012).
Hypnosis and False Memories
Robinson-Riegler and Robinson-Rielger (2012), discuss staying away from hypnosis because it can hypnosis can contribute to false memories.
An accepted presumption of memory is that every little thing is stored, that given the right recovery prompt or method, a memory will be "unlocked" and will relayed accurately (Robinson-Riegler &Robinson-Riegler, 2012). When an individual want to know something that happened in their past they should request that they are cognitively questioned by their psychotherapist. A cognitive questioning means that there cannot be any questions that are leading and that the individual is as comfortable as possible prior to being questioned. The technique is to not jump to conclusions and produce your own scenarios within your mind about what could have taken place, but additionally about what you do recollect the events that surround the incident that took place. "Deceptive information presented after an event can lead people to erroneous reports of that misinformation. Different process histories can be responsible for the same erroneous accounts in different individuals" (Loftus & Hoffman, 1989). There have individuals have gone through with hypnosis and have been on rigorous medication regimens because they are afraid of the affects of what they will do on their memory. When an individual has a good relationship with other people that they grow up with or if the people watched the individual watched grow up can help keep the memories stay alive. The problem with this is that the person has to whole heartedly trust the people to remember the accuracy, which sometimes can be tricky. "Misleading information presentation after an event can lead people to erroneous reports of that misinformation. Different process histories can be responsible for the same erroneous report in different people" (Loftus & Hoffman,
1989).