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Can a Survey of British False Memory Society Members Reliably Inform the Recovered Memory Debate?
Author(s) -
Andrews Bernice
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199702)11:1<19::aid-acp428>3.0.co;2-u
Subject(s) - psychology , false memory , inclusion (mineral) , survey data collection , social psychology , missing data , memory problems , cognition , developmental psychology , psychiatry , statistics , medicine , mathematics , dementia , disease , pathology
Gudjonsson has conducted a timely and welcome survey of BFMS members, who are to be commended for their frank responses. However, their answers can provide only partial information about the nature, circumstances and consequences of recovered memories. Attention is drawn to features of the way the data are presented that could result in potentially misleading conclusions. The unsystematic inclusion and exclusion of missing values has resulted in inflated frequencies when missing data are excluded from overall proportions. Furthermore, nearly a third of respondents were not sure, or denied, that recovered memories were involved in the accusations. The data are presented with no distinction between these respondents and respondents reporting clear recovered memory accusations. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.