title: Cognitive mechanisms underlying recovered-memory experiences of childhood sexual abuse.
abstract: People sometimes report recovering long-forgotten memories of childhood sexual abuse. The memory mechanisms that lead to such reports are not well understood, and the authenticity of recovered memories has often been challenged. We identified two subgroups of people reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. These subgroups differed dramatically in their cognitive profiles: People who recovered memories of abuse through suggestive therapy exhibited a heightened susceptibility to the construction of false memories, but showed no tendency to underestimate their prior remembering. Conversely, people who recovered memories of abuse spontaneously showed a heightened proneness to forget prior incidences of remembering, but exhibited no increased susceptibility to false memories. This double dissociation points to mechanisms that underlie recovered-memory experiences and indicates that recovered memories may at times be fictitious and may at other times be authentic.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, St. Mary's Quadrangle, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9JP, United Kingdom. elke.geraerts@st-andrews.ac.uk
authors.forename: Elke
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Geraerts
authors.forename: D Stephen
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Lindsay
authors.forename: Harald
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Merckelbach
authors.forename: Marko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jelicic
authors.forename: Linsey
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Raymaekers
authors.forename: Michelle M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.forename: Jonathan W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Schooler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D010555:Personality Inventory; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D013404:Suggestion