What Psychologists Know and Believe about Memory: A Survey of Practitioners

Abstract

We surveyed 858 licensed psychologists, members of the Norwegian Psychological Association, about their knowledge and beliefs about human memory. The results were compared to the results of parallel surveys of legal professionals and lay persons, and evaluated in the light of the results of current memory science. The results indicate that psychologists are not memory experts qua psychologists; as a group, psychologists do not score above the level of knowledge of lay persons or trial judges on issues of eyewitness memory, and a substantial minority of the sample of respondents harbours scientifically unproven ideas of memory. The implications of these findings for psychological practice, with special reference to the court room, are briefly discussed.

Are the “Memory Wars” Over? A Scientist-Practitioner Gap in Beliefs About Repressed Memory

“…Participants were recruited online through the university subject pool (undergraduates) or Amazon's Mechanical Turk (the general public) or were recruited by e-mail invitation (psychologists, life coaches, and therapists). Of those invited by e-mail, 15.5% participated fully, a rate comparable with that of other studies that have recruited participants via e-mail or listserv (e.g., 17% in Magnussen & Melinder, 2012;13% in Wise, Safer, & Maro, 2011). (For more details on the recruitment of participants, see Supplemental Method for Study 2 in the Supplemental Material.)…”

Expressed Emotions and Perceived Credibility of Child Mock Victims Disclosing Physical Abuse

“…Usually, when children's statements are assessed, professionals evaluate the credibility and reliability of their statements; therefore these findings should be generalized with caution. Magnussen & Melinder, 2012;, an educational program on the psychology of witness behavior targeting legal professionals can safely be recommended. However, often the first person to whom a child discloses maltreatment to is a lay person-a family member, friend or teacher (Goodman et al, 1992).…”

“…A survey by Melinder, Goodman, Eilertsen, and Magnussen (2004) showed that the legal professions differed in their views on the reliability of child witnesses, with defense attorneys being more skeptical than police officers and judges, perhaps indicating a bias related to their role in the legal system. However, a subsequent survey of a large representative sample of jury eligible Norwegian citizens showed that people in general believe that small children remember events equally well or even better than adults, and about half the respondents in a recent survey of psychologists (Magnussen & Melinder, 2012) and judges (Magnussen, Melinder, Raja, & Stridbeck, 2010) so believed. Consistent with these results, a Swedish survey showed that judges, lay judges and police officers believed that cognitive factors were less important in complicating child witnesses' reports of abuse than were emotional factors (Leander, Christianson, Svedin, & Granhag, 2007).…”

The ‘common sense’ memory belief system and its implications

“…However, and contrary to the beliefs of British and US courts, evaluating memory evidence is in fact difficult, and requires, as a minimum, knowledge of the nature and fallibility of autobiographical memory and, at an optimum, a comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence and shape memories and that can give rise to memory distortion, memory errors, and to wholly false memories (Magnussen & Melinder, 2012).…”

“…Memory researchers have investigated 'common sense' beliefs about memory through a series of recent surveys, (e.g., Benton, Ross, Bradshaw, Thomas, & Bradshaw, 2006;Conway, et al, 2014;Magnussen et al, 2006;Magnussen & Melinder, 2012;Patihis, Ho, Tingen, Lilenfield & Loftus, 2014;Simons & Chabris, 2011;Wise & Safer, 2004;Wise, Safer, & Maro, 2011). These surveys examined the extent to which 'common sense' knowledge is consistent with knowledge from the scientific study of human memory.…”