Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

1
Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

• Regan Bechtel
• Chris Kelly

2
Central Question

• The study focuses on the question of exactly how
  the memories of sexual abuse are recalled and if
  those memories might be repressed for adults.

3
Repression

• Repression is consciously keeping unwanted
  thoughts from a persons awareness.

4
Expansion on Abuse/Repression and Why.

• Loftus seems to expand greatly on various types
  of repression and abuse within the introduction
  to give people an idea about the wide variety of
  issues held within the blanket statements of
  abuse and repression. By giving different
  examples it helps to expand upon conventional
  definitions and achieve a bigger focus.

5
Reasons to Recall

• It is noted that some people may be suffering
  from post-abuse trauma but for unknown reasons,
  thus by bringing out the repressed abuse people
  are better able to fix their trauma.

6
Briere Conte /Herman Schatzow

• Loftus seemed to have major issues with the
  Briere/Conte study finding the questions
  interpretations could vary significantly between
  participants and feeling there was major room for
  error in experimenter bias towards prior feelings
  and opinion on the matter of repressed memories.
  Furthermore false memories could even be created
  in the mind of the participant by the
  experimenter.
• The Herman/Schatzow study found roughly a quarter
  of the sample had sever memory reduction of abuse
  from their childhood.

7
Methods

• Participants were asked an initial 11 questions
  asking about sexual exposure as a child beneath
  18, a yes answer meaning that they were exposed
  to it. If people said yes to any of the
  questions they were asked to elaborate on it,
  expressing how many times it happened, who
  perpetrated it, etc. After the generalized idea
  was created people were given numerous scales
  asking them how clearly they could remember
  certain aspects of the interactions, such as the
  sights, smells, and sounds of the worst occasion
  they could recall. People were also asked about
  how often they had thought about the event and if
  it had changed their life in any significant way.

8
Crucial Figures

• Clarity, as expected, was substantially higher
  for the group that always remembered.
• For intensity scores the partial ranked higher
  then the always at the time of the study.
• The intensity for the forgot group was higher at
  the time of the study then it was at the time of
  the act.

9
Results

• After finding of 19 repression the experimenters
  feel as though this may be higher then should
  actually be found due to misinterpretation by the
  participants.
• Remembered through out life accounts do not vary
  from recently remembered ones in the nature of
  the sexual encounter, though the definition of
  violence in this study included a wider variety
  of actions.
• There is great debate over what figure to pick in
  the end as the blanket statement of repression
  varying in numbers from as low as 19 to as high
  as 31. The final agreed upon number for the
  study is set at 19. Though this number is
  feared to be incorrect as well with different
  possibilities such as memories yet forgotten
  still within the mind that might alter the
  results.