1,721,140 research outputs found
Using imagination and personalized suggestion to change people
No full textThe power of suggestion to change what people say and do is well known. We review some past findings and describe a new method for influencing people's recollection of the past. This method, which we call the Expert Personalized Suggestion Paradigm (EPS), relies on expertise and personalization to achieve more influence than has been shown in many previous studies of suggestibility. A short session involving this powerful form of suggestion can influence the autobiography of individuals. These findings provide a cautionary message regarding casual interpretation of client data, and may inspire the development of new techniques for changing clients in positive ways
When dreams become reality
No full textIn three experiments, we found that after a subtle suggestion, subjects falsely recognized words from their own dreams and thought they had been presented during the waking state. The procedure used in these studies involved three phases. Subjects studied a list of words on Day 1. On Day 2, they received a false suggestion that some words from their previously reported dreams had been presented on the list. On Day 3, they tried to recall only what had occurred on the initial list. Subjects falsely recognized their dream words at a very high rate - sometimes as often as they accurately recognized true words. They reported that they genuinely "remembered" the dream words, as opposed to simply "knowing" that they had been previously presented. These findings, which suggest that dreams can sometimes be mistaken for reality, have significant implications for the practice of psychotherapy. © 1996 Academic Press
Changing beliefs about implausible autobiographical events: A little plausibility goes a long way
No full textThree experiments investigated the malleability of perceived plausibility and the subjective likelihood of occurrence of plausible and implausible events among participants who had no recollection of experiencing them. In Experiment 1, a plausibility-enhancing manipulation (reading accounts of the occurrence of events) combined with a personalized suggestion increased the perceived plausibility of the implausible event, as well as participants' ratings of the likelihood that they had experienced it. Plausibility and likelihood ratings were uncorrelated. Subsequent studies showed that the plausibility manipulation alone was sufficient to increase likelihood ratings but only if the accounts that participants read were set in a contemporary context. These data suggest that false autobiographical beliefs can be induced in clinical and forensic contexts even for initially implausible events
Dreaming, believing, and remembering
No full textPresents the findings of several years of empirical research involving the use of dreams in therapy and explores the extent to which the authors could use dream material, or even dream interpretation, to influence Ss' recollections of the past. Initial studies investigated whether a gentle suggestion could get people to believe falsely that items that came from their dream reports were words they had seen on a list that had been shown to them earlier in the experiment. Later studies examined whether not-so-gentle suggestions could get people to to believe falsely that items that came from their dream reports proved that they had had certain critical experiences in their childhood. Results showed that Ss could be made to have false beliefs with both gentle and not-so-gentle suggestions. Specific issues addressed include: dream experiences and false memories; self-generated stories and false memories; dream interpretation and false childhood beliefs; remembering danger that never happened; the power of dream interpretation; and from suggestion to belief in memory
Dream interpretation and false beliefs
No full textDream interpretation is a common practice in psychotherapy. In the research presented in this article, each participant saw a clinician who interpreted a recent dream report to be a sign that the participant had had a mildly traumatic experience before age 3 years, such as being lost for an extended time or feeling abandoned by his or her parents. This dream intervention caused a majority of participants to become more confident that they had had such an experience, even though they had previously denied it. These findings have implications for the use of dream material in clinical settings. In particular, the findings point to the possibility that dream interpretation may have unexpected side effects if it leads to beliefs about the past that may, in fact, be false
The revelation effect for autobiographical memory : a mixture-model analysis
Full text linkParticipants provided information about their childhood by rating the confidence that they had experienced various events (e.g., 'broke a window playing ball'). On some trials, participants unscrambled a key word from the event-phrase (e.g., wdinwo – window) or an unrelated word (e.g., gnutge – nugget) before seeing the event and giving their confidence rating. Unscrambling led participants to increase their confidence that the event occurred in their childhood, but only when the confidence rating immediately followed the act of unscrambling. This increase in confidence mirrors the “revelation effect” observed in word recognition experiments. We analyze our data using a new signal detection mixture distribution model which does not require that the researcher knows the veracity of memory judgments a priori. Our analysis reveals that unscrambling a key word or an unrelated word affects response bias and discriminability in autobiographical memory tests in ways that are very similar to those that have been previously found for word recognition tasks
Organisation et récupération de l'information sur les attributs et les noms
No full textLoftus Elizabeth F., Turbiaux Marcel. Organisation et récupération de l'information sur les attributs et les noms. In: Bulletin de psychologie, tome 29, numéro spécial, 1976. Spécial annuel 1976 : La mémoire sémantique. pp. 69-75
Beliefs and therapeutic practices related to traumatic memories among Italian cognitive behavioral therapists and trainees
Full text linkPurpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate cognitive behavior therapists and trainees's beliefs about various aspects of traumatic memory and to investigate cognitive behavior therapists' practices in relation to alleged traumatic experiences and whether they are linked with their beliefs about various aspects of traumatic memory. Design/methodology/approach: In the current study, the authors surveyed, by a questionnaire (in Italian), certified Italian cognitive behavioral (CB) therapists and trainees with respect to their beliefs in traumatic memories and whether they discussed about the possibility of repressed memory with their patients. Findings: The majority of participants held strong beliefs about many controversial aspects related to traumatic memory, such as the mind being able to block out of consciousness memories of traumatic experiences. Also, more than half of CB therapists stated that they sometimes discussed about the importance of traumatic events in the genesis of their patient's disorder and half of them sometimes talked with patients about memories for traumatic events of which they may be unaware. Such practices could lead to false memories of abuse Originality/value: One particularly novel finding relates to the evidence that therapists reported that they had discussed with patients the importance of traumatic events in the genesis of their illness and frequently noted that they talked about the possibility of repressed memories with them. In turn, patients may be induced to recall traumatic experiences from their lives, thereby producing false memories which may tear families apart and could even lead to wrongful convictions
Changing beliefs and memories through dream interpretation
No full textAutobiographical memory is malleable, but how much can we change people’s beliefs and memories about the past? We approached this question with a method designed to supply subjects with a highly personalized suggestion about what probably happened in their childhood. In the current study, one group of subjects (the ‘Dream ’ subjects) had their dreams interpreted to indicate that they had experienced a critical childhood event (e.g. being harassed by a bully) before the age of 3. Relative to control subjects who did not receive personalized suggestion, the Dream subjects were more likely to increase their belief that they had the critical experience, and approximately half of these also produced concrete memory reports. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for autobiographical memory, and also for psychotherapy practice. Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. We know that autobiographical memory is malleable, but how much can be change people’s beliefs and memories about the past? Many researchers have explored this question, and have devised a variety of paradigms for doing so. For example, one paradigm involves family members who collaborate with the researchers in providing false suggestions about the childhood of their relative (Loftus and Pickrell, 1995
False claims about false memory research
Full text linkPezdek and Lam [Pezdek, K. & Lam, S. (2007). What research paradigms have cognitive psychologists used to study “False memory,” and what are the implications of these choices? Consciousness and Cognition] claim that the majority of research into false memories has been misguided. Specifically, they charge that false memory scientists have been (1) misusing the term “false memory,” (2) relying on the wrong methodologies to study false memories, and (3) misapplying false memory research to real world situations. We review each of these claims and highlight the problems with them. We conclude that several types of false memory research have advanced our knowledge of autobiographical and recovered memories, and that future research will continue to make significant contributions to how we understand memory and memory errors
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