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Memory for Childhood Sexual Abuse Can Be Shaped by Social Conversations: A Commentary on Fagin, Cyr, and Hirst
Author(s) -
Barber Sarah J.
Publication year - 2015
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/acp.3190
Subject(s) - psychology , sexual abuse , recall , perception , child abuse , affect (linguistics) , child sexual abuse , social psychology , developmental psychology , poison control , human factors and ergonomics , cognitive psychology , communication , medicine , environmental health , neuroscience
Summary Conversations can affect memory, including victims' memories of childhood sexual abuse. As reviewed by Fagin, Cyr, and Hirst, victims disclose different types of information to different audiences. This in turn affects their memory of the abuse; the discussed details are reinforced and the related, but not discussed, details are forgotten. The current commentary extends these arguments in three ways. First, it is important to note that not all victims disclose their abuse, and thus, not all victims are subject to conversational influences. Second, when victims disclose their abuse they may also experience verbal overshadowing effects, exhibiting impaired recall for the discussed perceptual details. Finally, when disclosing their abuse victims sometimes have conversational goals other than accuracy. Depending upon the audience victims may exaggerate details or focus on how they emotionally responded. These decisions also have memorial consequences; people remember and believe what they said rather than what they experienced. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.