The nature of real, implanted, and fabricated memories for emotional childhood events: Implications for the recovered memory debate

A central issue in the recovered memory debate is whether it is possible to "remember" a highly emotional incident which never occurred. The present s tudy provided an in-depth investigation of real, implanted, and fabricated (deceptive) memories for stressful childhood events. We examined whether fa lse memories for emotional events could be implanted and, if so, whether re al, implanted, and fabricated memories had distinctive features. A question naire was sent to participants' parents asking about six highly emotional, stressful events (e.g., serious animal attack) which the participant may ha ve experienced in childhood. Next, across three sessions, interviewers enco uraged participants (N = 77) to "recover" a memory for a false event using guided imagery and repeated retrieval attempts. In the first interview, the y were asked about one real and one false event, both introduced as true ac cording to their parents. In two subsequent interviews, they were reintervi ewed about the false event. Finally, after the third inquiry about the fals e event, participants were asked to fabricate a memory report. Results indi cated that 26% of participants "recovered" a complete memory for the false experience and another 30% recalled aspects of the false experience. Real, implanted, and fabricated memories differed on several dimensions (e.g., co nfidence, vividness, details, repeated details, coherence, stress). These f indings have important implications for the debate over recovered and false memories.