(Mis) Representations of the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse in the Courts

SUMMARY

This study addresses the (mis) representations made by pro-false memory attorneys and expert witnesses in court regarding the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Five pro-false memory positions were identified: (1) there is no causal connection between CSA and adult psychopathology; (2) the evidence is insufficient; (3) CSA does not cause specific trauma-related outcomes like borderline and dissociative identity disorder; (4) other variables than CSA explain the variance of adult psychopathology; and (5) the long-term effects of CSA are general and non-specific. Examining the testimony revealed that such pro-false memory testimony was based solely on a partial understanding of retrospective data and that pro-false memory experts do not cite the more recent prospective data. Reviewing the totality of the scientific evidence demonstrates that such pro-false memory testimony is inaccurate and has the potential of misleading the jury. Prospective studies provide sufficient evidence to causally link CSA to a number of areas of adult psychopathology including multiple, co-morbid psychiatric conditions, and possibly to link early parent-infant attachment pathology to the development of borderline and dissociative identity disorder.     

(Mis) representations of the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse in the courts

This study addresses the (mis) representations made by pro-false memory attorneys and expert witnesses in court regarding the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Five pro-false memory positions were identified: (1) there is no causal connection between CSA and adult psychopathology; (2) the evidence is insufficient; (3) CSA does not cause specific trauma-related outcomes like borderline and dissociative identity disorder; (4) other variables than CSA explain the variance of adult psychopathology; and (5) the long-term effects of CSA are general and non-specific. Examining the testimony revealed that such pro-false memory testimony was based solely on a partial understanding of retrospective data and that pro-false memory experts do not cite the more recent prospective data. Reviewing the totality of the scientific evidence demonstrates that such pro-false memory testimony is inaccurate and has the potential of misleading the jury. Prospective studies provide sufficient evidence to causally link CSA to a number of areas of adult psychopathology including multiple, co-morbid psychiatric conditions, and possibly to link early parent-infant attachment pathology to the development of borderline and dissociative identity disorder.     

The impact of face masks on infants' learning of faces: An eye tracking study

This preregistered study examined how face masks influenced face memory in a North American sample of 6- to 9-month-old infants (N = 58) born during the COVID-19 pandemic. Infants' memory was tested using a standard visual paired comparison (VPC) task. We crossed whether or not the faces were masked during familiarization and test, yielding four trial types (masked-familiarization/masked-test, unmasked-familiarization/masked-test, masked-familiarization/unmasked-test, and unmasked-familiarization/unmasked-test). Infants showed memory for the faces if the faces were unmasked at test, regardless of whether or not the face was masked during familiarization. However, infants did not show robust evidence of memory when test faces were masked, regardless of the familiarization condition. In addition, infants' bias for looking at the upper (eye) region was greater for masked than unmasked faces, although this difference was unrelated to memory performance. In summary, although the presence of face masks does appear to influence infants' processing of and memory for faces, they can form memories of masked faces and recognize those familiar faces even when unmasked.     

The “False Memory” Defense: Using Disinformation and Junk Science In and Out of Court

SUMMARY

This article describes a seemingly sophisticated, but mostly contrived and often erroneous “false memory” defense, and compares it in a brief review to what the science says about the effect of trauma on memory. Child sexual abuse is widespread and dissociative/traumatic amnesia for it is common. Accused, convicted and self-confessed child molesters and their advocates have crafted a strategy that tries to negate their abusive, criminal behavior, which we can call a “false memory defense”. Each of 22 of the more commonly used components of this defense is described and discussed with respect to what the science says about them. Armed with this knowledge, survivors, their clinicians, and their attorneys will be better able to refute this defense of disinformation.     

The Symbolic Type Revisited: Semiotics in Practice and the Reformation of the Israeli Commemorative Context

Revisiting Grathoff's theory of symbolic type (ST), we examine the personal evolution and commemorative work of Tsipi Kichler, a cultural entrepreneur and founder of an alternative Israeli Holocaust museum/geriatric center. As hybrid product of Israeli social cleavages, Kichler exteriorizes her paradoxical vision in the museum aiming to reform Holocaust‐related discourse and practice. Early biographical positioning and resultant contradictions become translated into resistant commemorative performance where serious humor deconstructs the binaries of life/death and past/present. We consider the implications of the ST's self‐referential closure to interaction, and the transformative potential of the alignment of cultural entrepreneurs' personal memory with collective memory.     

“Time Immemorial” and Indigenous Rights: A Genealogy and Three Case Studies (Calder,Van der Peet,Tsilhqot'in) from British Columbia

“Time immemorial” has operated as a legal fiction in the discourse of colonization, performing a genealogical function in the construction of “antiquity” and “legal memory” in English law, and repurposed in Indigenous rights cases in Canada. Beginning with a genealogical outline, this paper analyzes “time immemorial” in relation to Settler and Indigenous discourses of time, memory and the land in Calder, Van der Peet, and Tsilhqot'in.     

The Effects of Truth: Re-Presentations of the Past and the Imagining of Community

Abstract Social memory is integral to the creation of social meaning; representations of the past are central to the symbolic constitution of social groups and social identities. This paper examines the production of effects of truth and power in both official and popular historical discourses in Mexico and demonstrates how representations of the past configure the imagining of community (social memory; official/popular historical discourses; nationalism: revolution; hegemony; Mexico).     

(Un)expected exception: validating acquiescent response style factor in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

This study explores the acquiescent response style (ARS) among respondents in the Czech Republic. To analyse ARS, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed and the response style (RS) was modelled as a latent variable. The RS factor in the CFA model must be validated by its relationship to education and age, i.e. proxies of cognitive ability. The two studies presented in this article use large amount of data as all available balanced batteries of items were analysed. In Study 1, the RS factor showed no correlation with age/education in most of the models. Study 2 employed additional measures of cognitive ability and education and confirmed the overall absence of the relationship. Author concludes that the modelled RS factor then cannot be considered the ARS and deduces that the most likely explanation of the identified systematic error variance is the respondents’ carelessness manifested by automatically choosing the extreme agreement, or choosing the first presented answer as a result of memory effect.     

The Evolution (or Devolution) of Privacy

This paper explores changes in the meaning of privacy. Because individuals understandings and experiences of privacy vary by sociohistorical contexts, privacy is difficult to define and even more challenging to measure. Avoiding common obstacles to privacy research, I examine privacy from the standpoint of its invasion. I develop a typology of privacy invasions and use it to analyze discussions of invasions of privacy in U.S. newspapers. I show that the nature of invasions discussed in the news is increasingly covert and continuous and find empirical support for the often-made claim that the concept of privacy is evolving in meaningful ways.     

The Holocaust: Commemorated but not remembered? Post-colonial and post-traumatic perspectives on the reception of the Holocaust memory discourse in Poland

The argument focuses on the reception of the globalized narrative of the Holocaust in the regional memories of East-Central Europe, in particular Poland. It is argued that this narrative has not been successfully integrated into the regional memory, partly because of the narrative's own deficiencies and partly due to the specific nature of the way in which regional memories have been produced. Instead, it has contributed to the split of collective and social memories in the region as well as to further fragmentation of each of these two kinds of memory. In result we may say that in post-communist Poland the Holocaust has been commemorated on the level of official institutions, rituals of memory, and elitist discourses, but not necessarily remembered on the level of social memory. It is claimed that to understand this phenomenon we should put the remembrance and commemoration of the Holocaust in the context of the post-communist transformation, in which the memory of the Holocaust has been constructed rather than retrieved in the process of re-composition of identities that faced existential insecurity. The non-Jewish Poles, who in the 1990s experienced the structural trauma of transformation, turned to the past not to learn the truth but to strengthen the group's sense of continuity in time. In this process many of them perceived the cosmopolitan Holocaust narrative as an instrument of the economic/cultural colonization of Eastern Europe in which the historical suffering of the non-Jewish East Europeans is not properly recognized. Thus the elitist efforts to reconnect with the European discourse and to critically examine one's own identity has clashed with the mainstream's politics of mnemonic security as part of the strategy of collective immortalization that contributed to the development of antagonistic memories and deepened social cleavage.     

The public relations paradox of erasure: Damnatio memoriae as public relations strategy and tactic

Public relations scholars study how organizations co-create meaning with engaged stakeholders. Not well understood is how and why such co-creation modifies shared meaning, amplifies change, and even “erases” some piece of memory from the public record with the purpose of redirecting and redefining societal narratives. To help establish erasure as a concept for studying public relations, we draw from Freud’s theory of memory to establish a foundation upon which to critique strategic erasure. We adapt Freud’s theory of memory into the intersecting critique of visual rhetoric as public relations by analyzing, via narrative inquiry, remnants of Imperial Rome that have been modified, amplified, but even erased to present Rome’s modern identity. For centuries, even during Imperial Rome, leaders practiced damnatio memoriae —a modern Latin phrase that means “condemnation of memory.” We use this concept to interrogate the public relations identity process Rome’s leaders have used to modify for emphasis and even obliterate Roman elites’ names and images from the texts of public records by destroying, mutilating and modifying statues and monuments as a means for co-creating new public memory. Such analysis reveals how damnatio memoriae helps elites to redefine the “memory” of the Eternal City.     

Public space,collective memory and intercultural dialogue in a (UK) city of culture

Using the case study of Derry~Londonderry and its designation as ‘UK City of Culture 2013’, the primary objective of this research paper is to critically analyse the challenges associated with the production of a year-long cultural programme in a culturally and politically divided place. Given that Northern Ireland’s second largest city has been understood in terms of a conflict between ‘two traditions’, Irish/Catholic and British/Protestant, we critically assess the dialogue and policy negotiations with reference to public places as well as representations of collective memory and traditional music during the year. Fieldwork over two years has enabled us to investigate how culture and identity politics are played out in the context of a city undergoing a process of reconciliation. Placing our case study in a strongly comparative context, we argue that cultural concerns are pivotal points of (re-)negotiation in any society transitioning from conflict to ‘peace’ and that this issue, therefore, is of vital concern to academics and policymakers alike internationally.     

The rise (and sometimes fall) of guerrilla governments in Latin Asmerica

Guerrilla governments arise where landlord or central government authority has decayed. In such situations, the guerrillas often establish a new implicit social contract with the peasantry, replacing the previous social contract, the abrogation of which has reduced the traditional authorities from legitimate to predatory powers in their relationships with peasants. Guerrillas build up their authority by carrying out three contractual obligations of authority: (1) defense of the people from external enemies; (2) maintenance of internal peace and order; and (3) contributions to the material security of the populace, the last by increasing peasant incomes and by providing health services, literacy training, and sometimes land to rural cultivators. As a result of such activities, peasants often come to perceive guerrillas as the new legitimate authorities in the region. Such authority has decayed, however, where the guerrillas in turn fail to fulfill the obligations of the social contract. Loss of authority can appear when guerrillas fail to defend the peasantry against military attackers, or when guerrillas themselves come to employ terror against the rural populace, thus violating the social contract uniting legitimate authorities and their subjects. This paper concludes with a discussion of the relevance of the study of guerrillas to social movement theory.     

Question Understanding Aid (QUAID): A Web Facility that Tests Question Comprehensibility

When respondents do not understand the meaning of a survey question,they will not supply valid and reliable answers. Survey methodologistsshould therefore benefit from computer tools and other analyticalschemes that help them identify problems with questions withrespect to comprehension difficulty. We developed a Web facilitycalled Question Understanding Aid (QUAID; www.psyc.memphis.edu/quaid.html)that assists survey methodologists in identifying problems withthe wording, syntax, and semantics of questions on questionnaires.The survey methodologist enters the question into the Web facility,along with any context information and answer alternatives thataccompany the question. QUAID quickly returns a list of potentialproblems with question comprehension, including unfamiliar technicalterms, vague or imprecise relative terms, vague or ambiguousnoun phrases, complex syntax, and working memory overload. Thisarticle describes QUAID and some empirical studies that haveassessed the validity and utility of QUAID’s critiquesof questions. The output of QUAID was compared with the judgmentsof experts in language, discourse, and cognition during thedevelopment of the tool. In one evaluation, expert survey methodologistscritiqued and revised problematic questions, whereas in a secondevaluation survey methodologists evaluated the quality of originalproblematic questions, questions revised with the assistanceof QUAID, and questions revised without QUAID. In a third evaluation,eye-tracking data were collected while respondents read questionson a computer screen and answered questions aloud. Respondentshad a tendency to give up processing difficult questions tooearly (called an early exit), which potentially threatens thevalidity of the respondents’ answers. Survey methodologistsare encouraged to use QUAID and further evaluate its validityand utility.     

The Sexual Inhibition (SIS) and Sexual Excitation (SES) Scales: II. Predicting psychophysiological response pattens

This study evaluated the predictive value of a newly developed measure of the propensity for sexual inhibition and excitation; the Sexual Inhibition Sexual Excitation Scales (SIS/SES). Sexual, cardiovascular, and startle responses were measured in a group of 40 sexually functional men during the presentation of threatening and nonthreatening erotic films. Two levels of performance demand were created and two films were combined with a distraction task. Participants were assigned to high and low groups for each of the three SIS/SES scales. As predicted, men with high SES scores showed generally higher sexual responses. High and low SIS1 groups did not differ in their responses. Men with high and low SIS2 scores did not differ in their responses to nonthreatening stimuli; however, low SIS2 men showed greater genital response to the threatening stimuli. The findings provide support for the value of the SIS/SES scales in predicting sexual responses.     

Enhancing VNR Impact: The Effects of Captioning on Memory and Understanding of TV News

Video news release (VNR) producers limit references in VNRs to the sponsor of the VNR to avoid rejection by news directors on the grounds that the story is merely a commercial message for the sponsor. We posited in this study that when reference is made to the sponsor, optimal effect may be garnered by judicious use of captions in the VNR. An information-processing experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of limited captions on memory and understanding of TV news. Success with VNRs has been notable in two genres: scientific/medical/technical topics and event coverage. News items in this study tapped these two genres, categorized as abstract/word stories and concrete/picture stories, respectively. Captions improved memory for abstract/word stories but not for concrete/picture stories. Captioning had no significant effect on either understanding or visual recognition of the stories. We conclude that VNR producers might best use captions to the sponsor's advantage in scientific/medical/technical stories but should expect only enhanced recall of information, not understanding or visual recognition.     

The Politics of Memory in Annexed Lorraine: The Conflicts between Germanification and French Stalwarts at the beginning of the 20th Century

The article examines how the uses of memory in turn‐of‐the‐century Lorraine structured political discourse and presented enduring difficulties for the actions of German administrators and local community leaders. In this border region, memory was always contested and challenged, and thereby unstable. This paper approaches “the politics of French memory” through the examination of various pro‐French “memory societies” and networks such as the Souvenir Français. The central question is how did conflicts over memory impact Lorraine's political life and its place in the German Empire in the years leading up to the Great War? Regarding this point, the growth of nationalism is analysed as a phenomenon that reached far beyond French nationalist circles.     

The End(s) of Ethnomethodology

From the outset, Melvin Pollner tried to come to grips with ethnomethodology, especially Harold Garfinkel’s contributions. In recent years he was especially concerned with where ethnomethodology had gone and where it was headed. In Garfinkel’s recent book, Ethnomethodology’s Program (2002), and other writings, Pollner saw a distinctly different version of ethnomethodology in contrast with Garfinkel’s (and others’) earlier work. “The End(s) of Ethnomethodology” represents Pollner’s most polished, if still incomplete, reflection upon the state of ethnomethodology in the early 21^st century. This article is published posthumously. Robert M. Emerson and James A Holstein assembled and edited the final text.     

The Effect of Learning Experiences and Context on Infant Imitation and Generalization

Over the first years of life, infants gradually develop the ability to retrieve their memories across cue and contextual changes. Whereas maturational factors drive some of these developments in memory ability, experiences occurring within the learning event may also impact infants' ability to retrieve memories in new situations. In 2 experiments we examined whether it was possible to facilitate 12‐month‐old infants' generalization of learning in the deferred imitation paradigm by varying experiences before or during the demonstration session, or during the retention interval. In Experiment 1, altering the length, timing, or variability of training had no impact on generalization; infants showed a low, but consistent level of memory retrieval. In Experiment 2, infants who experienced a unique context for encoding and retrieval exhibited generalization; infants who experienced the context prior to the demonstration session, or during the retention interval, did not. Specificity is a robust feature of infant memory and is not substantially altered by encoding experiences in an observational learning paradigm. Previous history with a learning environment can, however, impact the flexibility of memory retrieval.