UT PSY 394U - Pseudoscience, Cross examination and scientific evidence

Unformatted text preview:

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.1998, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1160-1181 1076-8971/98/$3.00PSEUDOSCIENCE, CROSS-EXAMINATION, ANDSCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE IN THE RECOVEREDMEMORY CONTROVERSYKenneth S. PopeNorwalk, CTThe recovered memory controversy is a contentious mix of conflicting claims,theories, and research. For example, reports of recovered memories of child sexabuse may be described as the result of implanting, false memory syndrome,repression, dissociation, motivated forgetting, directed forgetting, amnesia, betrayaltrauma, retroactive inhibition, suggestion, self-induced hypnotic trance states,personality disorder, thought suppression, retrieval inhibition, cognitive gating, orbiological protective processes. These terms may be used without clear definition orscientific basis and may unintentionally foster pseudoscientific beliefs. Drawing onDaubert and other sources, this article suggests using 6 basic sets of cross-examination questions to assess the material in this area and to expose pseudosci-ence. These 6 questions focus on research basis, unclear terms and deductivefallacies, inferential errors and confirmation bias, links in the chain of reasoning, adhominem fallacies, and original sources.The recovered memory controversy has emerged kicking and screamingduring the past decade or so, a daunting arena of science and pseudoscience, ofclaims and conclusions in the absence of adequate data and data lacking adequateexplanatory theories, of elegant research, bullying dogma, thoughtful questions,extreme positions, and no shortage of confusion. Attempts to understand howadults could come to report newly emerging memories about having experiencedchild sex abuse have become all but lost in a bewildering blizzard of conflictingterms and concepts. Such reported memories may be described as the result ofrepression, dissociation, implanting, motivated forgetting, directed forgetting,amnesia, betrayal trauma, retroactive inhibition, suggestibility, self-induced hyp-notic trance states, personality disorder, thought suppression, retrieval inhibition,cognitive gating processes, biological protective processes, a clinical syndrome,and so on. These terms and concepts may be used without clear definition orscientific basis and may foster pseudoscientific beliefs.A useful approach to the booming, buzzing confusion in this area may be toapproach it as if it were an expert witness and to use the fundamental questions ofcross-examination to search out relevant information, assess accuracy, and exposepseudoscience. The six sections that follow illustrate this process of cross-examination, emphasizing the importance of closely examining (a) research basis,(b) unclear terms and deductive fallacies, (c) inferential errors and confirmationbias, (d) links in the chain of reasoning, (e) ad hominem fallacies, and (f) originalCorrespondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kenneth S. Pope, P.O. Box 777,Norwalk, Connecticut 06856-0777. Electronic mail may be sent via the World Wide Web site athttp://www.idealist.com/memuries.1160PSEUDOSCIENCE AND CROSS-EXAMINATION 1161The Research BasisOne of the landmark shifts in the cross-examination of expert witnessesoccurred with the U.S. Supreme Court's 1993 rendering of the Daubert v. MerrellDow Pharmaceuticals decision. Prior to Daubert, the admissibility of scientifictestimony was most often determined by some version of the 1923 Frye rule. Fryefocused on whether a concept, finding, theory, or claim had been generallyaccepted by the scientific community. Daubert, interpreting the 1974 FederalRules of Evidence, broadened the focus to include questions such as whether thematter had been subjected to methodologically sound research and scientificallysound inference and whether it had appeared in peer-review journals.When considering the area of recovered and false memories, it is crucial todetermine the degree to which scientific research supports any specific claim. Forexample, consider the following two statements. Blume (1990) wrote that "it is notunlikely that more than half of all women are survivors of childhood sexualtrauma" (p. iv; italics in original). Martinson (1994) wrote that "In the process ofgrowing up, it is almost inevitable that a child will have one or more encounters ofa sexual nature in which the other party is either too young or too old to beregarded as a peer" (p. 75). What, if any, scientific research supports such claims?It appears that there are no scientific studies published in the peer-reviewedscientific literature that establish the validity of these statements. It is not justconclusions, such as those above, but also evaluative instruments that may lack abasis in research providing scientific evidence of their validity or reliability.Unfortunately, there seems to be no shortage of unvalidated checklists used bythose at either extreme in this controversy (for a discussion of unvalidatedchecklists in this area, see Olio, 1996; Pope & Brown, 1996).Although many concepts, claims, and instruments in this area clearly lack anyresearch basis, in other instances determining whether there is a solid researchbasis is more challenging. The concept repressed memories shows how complexand difficult making this determination can be.Recovered memories of child sex abuse—whether accurate or false—are oftentermed repressed memories. The use of this term (often with ambiguity andconfusion as to whether it simply means "forgotten" for a period of time or impliesa specific mechanism of forgetting) has grown common in the popular media, legalcases, and some of the scientific literature. Interestingly, those at both ends of thiscontroversy's extremely polarized spectrum have used the term to describe therelevant mechanism—for example, Repressed Memories: A Journey to RecoveryFrom Sexual Abuse (Fredrickson, 1992) and The Myth of Repressed Memory:False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse (E. F. Loftus & Ketcham, 1994).Does the concept of repression rest on a sound research basis? Early in thecentury, a wide variety of laboratory experiments and other studies seemed, at leastaccording to the investigators, to provide sound scientific support for the concept.In "Functional Abnormalities of Memory With Special Reference to Amnesia,"Sears (1936) focused on Freud's discussion of repression and how it could betested experimentally. Stewart (1962) reviewed 17 studies of repression


View Full Document

UT PSY 394U - Pseudoscience, Cross examination and scientific evidence

Documents in this Course
Roadmap

Roadmap

6 pages

Load more
Download Pseudoscience, Cross examination and scientific evidence
Our administrator received your request to download this document. We will send you the file to your email shortly.
Loading Unlocking...
Login

Join to view Pseudoscience, Cross examination and scientific evidence and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or
We will never post anything without your permission.
Don't have an account?
Sign Up

Join to view Pseudoscience, Cross examination and scientific evidence 2 2 and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or

By creating an account you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use

Already a member?