Abstract
Previous studies have reported that imagination can induce false autobiographical memories. This finding has been used to suggest that psychotherapists who have clients imagine suspected repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse may, in fact, be inducing false memories for the imagined events. In this study, at Time 1 and then, 2 weeks later, at Time 2, 145 subjects rated each of 20 events on the Life Events Inventory as to whether each had occurred to them in childhood. One week after Time 1, the subjects were told that 2 target events were plausible and 2 were implausible. They were then asked to imagine 1 plausible and 1 implausible target event. Plausibility and imagining interacted to affect occurrence ratings; whereas imagining plausible events increased the change in occurrence ratings, imagining implausible events had no effect on occurrence ratings.
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This article is based on work, supported by the National Science Foundation, conducted by K.P. under Grant SES-9910909. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Part of this research also served as P.G.’s M.A. thesis.
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Pezdek, K., Blandon-Gitlin, I. & Gabbay, P. Imagination and memory: Does imagining implausible events lead to false autobiographical memories?. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 13, 764–769 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193994
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193994