"Recovered Memories" of Non-Abuse Autobiographical Experiences
Zara Ambadar and Jonathan W. Schooler
University of Pittsburgh
A central issue in the recovered memory debate concerns the "special" status of
recovered memories of sexual abuse. This research investigated whether more standard
autobiographical memories can be associated with recollective experiences resembling
recovered memories of sexual abuse. Undergraduates were given a questionnaire asking them
whether they had ever remembered an experience and were surprised to realize that they had
previously forgotten it. If so, subjects then described their recollection experience and rated
the characteristics of the original event, the extent of forgetting and the quality of both the
memory and the recollection experience. Preliminary result suggest that about 50% of the
subjects had had such recovered-memory-like experience. Although less traumatic in nature,
these non-sexual recovered memories resembled recovered memories of sexual abuse in a
number of respects.