Memory

If you’re not convinced that absolute certainty and universal agreement on what to believe and do are impossible
goals for critical thinking, consider memory. How accurate and reliable is memory? We’re often wrong about how
accurately we’ve remembered things. Studies on memory have shown that we often construct our memories after
the fact and that our memories are susceptible to suggestions
from others (Loftus 1980b, 1987; Schacter 1996). Those
suggestions blend with our memories of events and fill in
memory-gaps. That is why, for example, a police officer
investigating a crime should not show a picture of a single
individual to a victim and ask if the victim recognizes the
assailant. If the victim is then presented with a lineup and picks out the individual whose picture the victim had
been shown, there is no way of knowing whether the victim is remembering the assailant or the picture.
Furthermore, studies have shown that there is no significant correlation between the accuracy of a memory and
the subjective feeling of certainty a person has about the memory. Child psychologist Jean Piaget, for example,
claimed that his earliest memory was of nearly being kidnapped at the age of two. He remembered details such as
sitting in his baby carriage, watching the nurse defend herself against the kidnapper, scratches on the nurse’s face,
and a police officer with a short cloak and a white baton chasing the kidnapper away. The nurse, the family, and
others who had heard it reinforced the story. Piaget was convinced that he remembered the event. However, it
never happened. Thirteen years after the alleged kidnapping attempt, Piaget’s former nurse wrote to his parents to
confess that she had made up the entire story. Piaget later wrote: “I therefore must have heard, as a
*“There is no such thing as absolute certainty,
but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes
of human life.” -- John Stuart Mill
child, the account of this story...and projected it into the past in the form of a visual memory, which was a memory
of a memory, but false.”
Confabulation
A confabulation is a fantasy that has unconsciously replaced events in memory. A confabulation may be based
partly on fact or be a complete construction of the imagination. The term is often used to describe the “memories”
of mentally ill persons, memories of alien abduction, and false memories induced by careless therapists or
interviewers (Carroll 2003: 81). 
Hypnosis and repressed memory
Contrary to what many people believe, hypnosis does not significantly aid memory’s accuracy. Because subjects
are extremely suggestible while hypnotized, some states do not allow as evidence in a court of law testimony made
while under hypnosis (Loftus 1980a).4 Minnesota’s Supreme Court was the first state court to rule that
recollections under hypnosis would not be admissible as evidence in court. The American Medical Association
(AMA) agrees. An AMA committee reported that there was “no evidence to indicate that there is an increase of
only accurate memory during hypnosis.” Martin Reiser, director of behavioral science services for the Los Angeles
Police Department, disagrees. He thinks that hypnosis is a natural human ability anyone can use to improve
memory. Defenders of hypnosis cite cases such as the bus driver who, while under hypnosis, recalled most of the
license plate number of a van he saw. This helped break the Chowchilla kidnapping case. (On July 15, 1976, a
busload of school children and their bus driver were abducted on their way back from a swim outing.) Opponents
point to the fact that people can have vivid memories under hypnosis that are false and that a hypnotized person,
because of being very suggestible, runs a great risk of using the imagination to fill in memory-gaps. But even if
some hypnotic memories are accurate, there is no significant probability that a memory is any more reliable simply
because it has been hypnotically induced.
Even more controversial is the case of repressed memory. Some psychologists believe that a person can
experience something extremely unpleasant and then almost immediately forget it. Many years later another
experience may trigger a recollection of the
horrible event. Many people forget things and
intentionally repress memories of unpleasant
experiences. But all the evidence on memory
supports the notion that the more traumatic an
event, the more likely one is to remember it. The
only exceptions are when one is rendered
unconscious and when one is too young to
process the experience in terms of language
(Schacter 1996).

What is the evidence, then, that repressed
memories are accurate? San Francisco
psychiatrist Lenore Terr believes that traumatic
memories can be “far clearer, more detailed and
more long-lasting” than ordinary memory.5 That
may be true but the real issue is the accuracy of
the memory. Being clearer or more detailed does 
We should not expect critical thinking to lead to
universal agreement on all issues, even on
important issues about which there is abundant
information and general agreement about the
facts. We should reflect on the limitations
imposed by perception, memory, our worldviews,
and the testimony of others. But we need not
become entirely skeptical regarding beliefs
based on observation, memory, and testimony.
Such reflection ought to encourage us to
cultivate a healthy skepticism toward our pet
theories and ideas. As long as we stand ready to
argue for and defend our beliefs publicly, and are
open-minded enough to hear out contrary arguments
and change our position if need be, we will
stand a good chance of avoiding unreasonable
and unjustified beliefs.
not mean the memory is more accurate. The myth of the accuracy of vivid repressed memories is the basis for a
number of popular works on child abuse by self-proclaimed experts such as Ellen Bass, Laura Davis, Wendy
Maltz, Beverly Holman, Beverly Engel, Mary Jan Williams and E. Sue Blume.6 A whole industry has been built up
out of the hysteria that inevitably accompanies charges of the sexual abuse of children. Therapists who are
supposed to help children recover from the trauma of child abuse are hired to interrogate children to find out if
they’ve been abused. All too often the therapist suggests the abuse to the child and then the child has “memories”
of being abused. No rational person should find a parent or caretaker guilty on the basis of such tainted testimony.7
Since March 1992, the False Memory Syndrome (FMS) Foundation in Philadelphia has collected 2,700 cases of
parents who report false accusations that were the result of “memories” recovered in therapy.8 The FMS Foundation
claims that these cases include about 400 families who have been sued or threatened with suits for child
abuse.9
A variant of the memory of non-experiences is the notion that a person can remember experiences from past
lives. This myth has been perpetuated primarily by accounts of people who in dreams or under hypnosis recall
experiences of people who lived in earlier times. A classic example of a false memory of a past life is the case of
Bridey Murphy. In 1952, Morey Bernstein hypnotized Virginia Tighe, who then began speaking in an Irish brogue
and claimed that she had been Bridey Murphy from Cork, Ireland, in a previous incarnation. While under hypnosis,
Tighe sang Irish songs and told Irish stories, always as Bridey Murphy. The Search for Bridey Murphy (Tighe is
called Ruth Simmons in the book) was a best seller. Recordings of the hypnotic sessions were translated into more
than a dozen languages. The recordings sold well, too. The reincarnation boom in America had begun. Never again
would an American publisher lose money on a book dealing with reincarnation, past life regression, channeling,
life after life, or any occult topic appealing to the human desire to live forever.
Newspapers sent reporters to Ireland to investigate. Was there a redheaded Bridey Murphy who lived in
Ireland in the nineteenth century? Who knows, but one paper--the Chicago American--found her in Chicago in the
20th century. Bridie Murphey Corkell lived in the house across the street from where Elizabeth Tighe grew up.
What Elizabeth reported while hypnotized were not memories of a previous life but memories from her early childhood.
Many people were impressed with the vivid details of her memories, but details are not evidence of
authenticity. Tighe engaged in confabulation
As Martin Gardner says, “Almost any hypnotic subject capable of going into a deep trance will babble about a
previous incarnation if the hypnotist asks him to. He will babble just as freely about his future incarnations....In
every case of this sort where there has been adequate checking on the subject’s past, it has been found that the
subject’s unconscious mind was weaving together long-forgotten bits of information acquired during his early
years” (Gardner 1977).10