False Memories in Women with Self-Reported Childhood Sexual Abuse: An Empirical Study

@article{Bremner2000FalseMI,
  title={False Memories in Women with Self-Reported Childhood Sexual Abuse: An Empirical Study},
  author={James Douglas Bremner and Katharine K. Shobe and John F. Kihlstrom},
  journal={Psychological Science},
  year={2000},
  volume={11},
  pages={333 - 337}
}
Although controversy exists about the validity of memories of childhood abuse, little is known about memory function in individuals reporting childhood abuse. This study assessed memories for previously presented words, including the capacity for false memory of critical lures not actually present in the word list, in 63 subjects, including abused women with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), abused women without PTSD, and men and women without abuse or PTSD. Abused women with PTSD had a… 
View on SAGE
ocf.berkeley.edu
117 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
5
Background Citations
31
Methods Citations
3
Results Citations
6

Tables from this paper

117 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

False Recognition in Women Reporting Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse
TLDR
The results suggest that the recovered-memory group was more prone to false recognition than the other groups, and women reporting recovered and repressed memories showed greater reduction in false recognition across study trials than did other subjects, perhaps reflecting strategic changes in performance.
Traumatic Impact Predicts Long-Term Memory for Documented Child Sexual Abuse
TLDR
Understanding an event's traumatic impact is important for predicting the accuracy of long-term memory for reported CSA, and Severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology was positively associated with memory accuracy.
False recognition in women with a history of childhood emotional neglect and diagnose of recurrent major depression
Fantasy proneness, but not self-reported trauma is related to DRM performance of women reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse
Coping style and memory specificity in adolescents and adults with histories of child sexual abuse
TLDR
The hypothesis that nonspecific memory retrieval is related to an individual's general tendency to use avoidant (i.e., distancing) coping as a personal problem-solving or coping strategy, especially in victims of CSA is tested.
Dissociative symptoms and how they relate to fantasy proneness in women reporting repressed or recovered memories
Memory for neutral, emotional and trauma-related information in sexual abuse survivors
TLDR
The main novel contribution of this study is the demonstration that verbal episodic memory is not impaired for non-autobiographical trauma-related content in sexual abuse survivors.
False memory for trauma-related Deese–Roediger–McDermott lists in adolescents and adults with histories of child sexual abuse
TLDR
Regression analyses revealed that individuals with higher PTSD scores and greater fearful-avoidant attachment tendencies showed less proficient memory monitoring for CSA lists, and implications for trauma and memory development and for translational research are discussed.
False Memory Susceptibility in OEF/OIF Veterans With and Without PTSD
False memory susceptibility was measured in 80 Iraq/Afghanistan veterans with (n = 32) and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; n = 48) using a modified Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) word…
Autobiographical memory specificity in child sexual abuse victims
TLDR
Findings contribute to the scientific understanding of childhood trauma and autobiographical memory functioning and underscore the importance of considering the role of age and degree of traumatization within the study of autobiographies memory.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 41 REFERENCES
False Recognition in Women Reporting Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse
TLDR
The results suggest that the recovered-memory group was more prone to false recognition than the other groups, and women reporting recovered and repressed memories showed greater reduction in false recognition across study trials than did other subjects, perhaps reflecting strategic changes in performance.
Deficits in short-term memory in adult survivors of childhood abuse
Psychotherapy and memories of childhood sexual abuse: A cognitive perspective
Cognitive psychological research on the fallibility of human memory is reviewed, focusing on evidence of memory distortions and illusions, with the aim of sharing research on memory with clinical…
Magnetic resonance imaging-based measurement of hippocampal volume in posttraumatic stress disorder related to childhood physical and sexual abuse—a preliminary report
Clinical characteristics of women with a history of childhood abuse: unhealed wounds.
TLDR
Children abused only as children did not differ from women who reported current, but not childhood, abuse in number of physical symptoms, emotional distress, substance abuse, or suicide attempts, and patients who reported both childhood and adult abuse had higher levels of psychological problems and physical symptoms.
Neural mechanisms in dissociative amnesia for childhood abuse: relevance to the current controversy surrounding the "false memory syndrome".
TLDR
The studies reviewed here show that extreme stress has long-term effects on memory, which may provide a model for understanding the mechanisms involved in dissociative amnesia, as well as a rationale for phenomena such as delayed recall of childhood abuse.
Deficits in short-term memory in posttraumatic stress disorder.
TLDR
Patients with PTSD may have deficits in short-term memory and Counseling and rehabilitation that address these deficits may be of value for PTSD patients.
MRI-based measurement of hippocampal volume in patients with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder.
TLDR
A smaller right hippocampal volume in PTSD that is associated with functional deficits in verbal memory is consistent with high levels of cortisol associated with stress.
Posttraumatic stress disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey.
TLDR
Progress in estimating age-at-onset distributions, cohort effects, and the conditional probabilities of PTSD from different types of trauma will require future epidemiologic studies to assess PTSD for all lifetime traumas rather than for only a small number of retrospectively reported "most serious" traumAs.
The Recovered Memory/False Memory Debate
Childhood Trauma and Memory: G.S. Goodman, J.A. Quas, J.M. Batterman-Faunce, M.M. Riddlesberger, and J. Kuhn, Predictors of Accurate and Inaccurate Memories of Traumatic Events Experienced in…
...
...