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Recovered Memories in Courts of Law
In 1990, George Franklin was convicted of killing eight-year-old Susan Kay Naton. ... This case is unusual because Franklin’s daughter based her accusations on recovered memories – memories that had been blocked from consciousness. The prevalence of such evidence in criminal and civil law suits requires further research of the authenticity of recovered memories.
Repressed memories, also known as dissociative amnesia, occur when a person blocks the memory of a traumatic event. According to Steven Smith, a psychologist at Texas A&M University, dissociative amnesia is defined as a “reversible memory impairment in which memories of personal experience (usually of a traumatic or stressful nature) cannot be retrieved in verbal form. Others, such as Elizabeth Loftus of the Washington University Psychology Department, believe that false memories can be created by suggestion and an individual may believe they have recovered true memories. An individual with no memories may be “convinced that abuse is likely and …use reconstructive strategies to generate memories that support that conviction” (Loftus, 12). Although the theory of repressed memories has been studied since the early 1800s, neither repressed nor false memories have been proven to exist.
Proponents of recovered memories have many theories to support their beliefs. ...
Smith believes this experiment proves that memories can be blocked and then cued back to consciousness. ...
Critics of recovered memories believe that false memories can be created through suggestion from therapists, friends, dreams, or media.
Approximate Word count = 1164
Approximate Pages = 4.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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