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This book encompasses and weaves together the common threads of the four major topics that comprise the core of false memory research: theories of false memory, adult experimental psychology of false memory, false memory in legal contexts, and false memory in psychotherapy. By integrating material on all four of these topics, the book provides a comprehensive picture of our current understanding of human false memory.

This book is grounded in the debates of the 1980s and 1990s that surrounded recollections of childhood sexual abuse, particularly those that emerged in the context of psychotherapy. When growing numbers of therapists claimed that they were recovering deeply repressed memories of early sexual violations in their female clients, a wave of alarmed critics countered that therapists were implanting the very memories they were discovering. In looking back at this volatile and heated controversy, Memory Matters takes up disturbing questions that linger concerning memory, sexuality, and childhood. Beginning with a re-analysis of cases from the recovered memory era, the volume goes on to offer fresh perspectives on recollections of childhood sexual abuse. Informed by feminist and critical perspectives within psychology, contributing authors introduce examples from their own qualitative research on processes of remembering. They offer rich examples from a wide range of applied settings, from the courts, psychotherapy, institutions for the disabled, to self-help groups and the media. A shared set of questions is addressed by each of the authors to create a dialogue with the reader on recurring motifs. Memory Matters is an ideal resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in the social sciences and legal studies, as well as practitioners in the fields of mental health, crisis services, and the law. Scholarly and accessible in tone, the book also offers helpful insights for professionals working with childhood memory. \" This is a challenging book with excellent contributions from international scholars. It has the potential to shift the balance of memory research from a neurological context-free process towards an exciting interdisciplinary, discursive approach to remembering and embodiment. It should be essential reading for all those working and studying in the field of memories of abuse.\" - Paula Nicolson, Royal Holloway University of London, UK \" Memory Matters provides an exhaustive overview and thorough grounding for anyone wishing to find out about research on memory and abuse, or to undertake such research themselves. I have rarely seen such an impressive, comprehensive anthology, least of all one addressing such critical and controversial material as these essays.\" - Lynne Segal, Professor of Gender and Psychology, Birkbeck College, UK Janice Haaken is Professor of Psychology at Portland State University, a clinical and community psychologist, and a documentary filmmaker. She has published extensively in the areas of psychoanalysis and feminism, the history of gender and diagnostic categories, group responses to violence and trauma, gender and collective remembering, storytelling, and the psychology of social change. Paula Reavey is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at London South Bank University. Her research interests are around social remembering, embodiment and distress across a variety of therapeutic, everyday and psychiatric settings. These include the study of everyday recollections of child sexual abuse, therapeutic understanding of gender and memory and the use of memory work with service users. J. Haaken, P. Reavey, Why Memory Still Matters: Disturbing Recollections. Section 1. Looking Back on the Recovered Memory Debate: Claims and Counter-claims. M. Ashmore, S.D. Brown , On Changing One's Mind Twice: The Strange Credibility of Retracting Recovered Memories. J. Ost, K. Nunkoosing, Reconstructing Bartlett and Revisiting Retractions of Contested Claims of Abuse. J.F. Motzkau, Speaking Up Against Justice: Credibility, Suggestibility and Children's Memory on Trial. J. Kitzinger, Transformations of Public and Private Knowledge: Audience Reception, Feminism and the Experience of Childhood Sexual Abuse. J. Woodiwiss, 'Alternative Memories' and the Construction of a Sexual Abuse Narrative. Section 2. Widening the Lens: Cultural Contexts for Remembering Child Sexual Abuse. P. Reavey, The Spaces of Memory: Rethinking Agency Through Materiality. K. Robson, 'Truth', Memory and Narrative in Memoirs of Child Sexual Abuse. R. Fyson, J. Cromby, Memory, Sexual Abuse and the Politics of Learning Disability. S. Campbell, Memory, Truth, and the Search for an Authentic Past. E. Burman, Therapy as Memory-work: Dilemmas of Discovery, Recovery and Construction. J. Haaken, Transformative Remembering: Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and Recollections of Abuse.

Priority-based allocation of attentional resources has shown robust effects in working memory (WM) with both cue-based and reward-based prioritization. However, direct comparisons between these effects in WM are needed. Additionally, the consequences of WM prioritization for remembering in the long term remain unclear for both prioritization procedures. Here, we tested and compared the immediate and long-term memory (LTM) effects of cue-based versus reward-based retrospective prioritization of WM content. Participants encoded four memory items and were then indicated to prioritize one of the items through the presentation of either a retro-cue or a reward pattern. We then tested their immediate and delayed memory. The results of the first experiment showed better memory for prioritized than for unprioritized information in WM and LTM, but the WM effect was driven solely by the retro-cue, making it difficult to interpret any reward-based effects in LTM. In the second experiment, using a more explicit and meaningful reward-based manipulation, the results showed a prioritization benefit in WM for both prioritization procedures. In LTM, however, the prioritization effect was predominantly driven by the retro-cue manipulation. Taken together, we found that (1) the way in which attention is directed in WM impacts the size of the prioritization benefit in WM, (2) WM prioritization generally results in a prioritization effect in LTM, and (3) that the effect in LTM is more robust for cue-based prioritization. Exploratory analyses indicated that the LTM effect of cue-based prioritization reflected a cost in performance for noncued items rather than a benefit for cued items.

Many theories assume that actively maintaining information in working memory (WM) predicts its retention in episodic long-term memory (LTM), as revealed by the beneficial effects of more WM time. In four experiments, we examined whether affording more time for intentional WM maintenance does indeed drive LTM. Sequences of four words were presented during trials of simple span (short time), slow span (long time), and complex span (long time with distraction; Experiments 1 – 2 ). Long time intervals entailed a pause of equivalent duration between the words that presented a blank screen (slow span) or an arithmetic problem to read aloud and solve (complex span). In Experiments 1 – 3 , participants either serially recalled the words (intentional encoding) or completed a no-recall task (incidental encoding). In Experiment 4 , all participants were instructed to intentionally encode the words, with the trials randomly ending in the serial-recall or no-recall task. To ensure similar processing of the words between encoding groups, participants silently decided whether each word was a living or nonliving thing via key press (i.e., an animacy judgment; Experiments 1 and 3 – 4 ) or read the words aloud and then pressed the space bar (Experiment 2 ). A surprise delayed memory test at the end of the experiment assessed LTM. Applying Bayesian cognitive models to disambiguate binding and item memory revealed consistent benefits of free time to binding memory that were specific to intentional encoding in WM. This suggests that time spent intentionally keeping information in WM is special for LTM because WM is a system that maintains bindings.

Processing that occurs while information is held in working memory is critical in long-term retention of that information. One counterintuitive finding is that the concurrent processing required during complex span tasks typically impairs immediate memory, while also leading to improved delayed memory. One proposed mechanism for this effect is retrieval practice that occurs each time memory items are displaced to allow for concurrent processing during complex span tasks. Other research has instead suggested that increased free time during complex span procedures underlies this effect. In the present study, we presented participants with memory items in simple, complex, and slow span tasks and compared their performance on immediate and delayed memory tests. We found that how much a participant engaged with the secondary task of the complex span task corresponded with how strongly they exhibited a complex span boost on delayed memory performance. We also probed what participants were thinking about during the task, and found that participants’ focus varied depending both on task type and secondary task engagement. The results support repeated retrieval as a key mechanism in the relationship between working memory processing and long-term retention. Further, the present study highlights the importance of variation in individual cognitive processing in predicting long-term outcomes even when objective conditions remain unchanged.

Background Research into AD has revealed that cognitive manifestation tends to differ depending on age of onset, such that younger patients often present with worse cognitive abilities than their older counterparts until the age of 75 – with a reversal of the relationship after 75‐years‐old (Barnes et al., 2018). As recent work has identified a unique cognitive profile for Early‐Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (EOAD) relative Late‐Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (Hammers et al., 2025), it is unknown if the nature of the association between age and cognitive severity at presentation also differs across conditions. Method Cross‐sectional baseline cognitive data were analyzed from 401 EOAD participants enrolled in the Longitudinal Early‐Onset AD Study (Apostolova et al., 2019) and 314 LOAD participants from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. A series of linear spline regression models were conducted with age at enrollment as the predictor and the specific domain composite score as the outcome variable, after accounting for sex and APOE ε4 status. For each model, a knot was selected at age 65, with linear regression applied to a total of two segments surrounding that single knot. Result As seen in Table 1, cognitive impairments (z‐scores <‐1.5) were common across domains for EOAD and LOAD. Significant differences existed in the slopes of Processing Speed/Attention (p=.002), Executive Functioning (p<.001), and Episodic Immediate Memory (p=.007) performance between age‐segments in the model (Figure 1). For example, performance on the domain composites for Processing Speed/Attention and Executive Functioning increased significantly for EOAD participants as the age of enrollment increased (βs=0.19‐0.27, ps<.001), whereas the performance for LOAD participants on these domains also increased – but to a lesser extent – as age increased. No age‐relationship was observed for Episodic Delayed Memory, Language, or Visuospatial performances (ps=.06‐.34). Conclusion Results suggest a unique relationship between EOAD and LOAD populations for the age at enrollment and cognitive severity for executive and processing/learning domains. This supports previous findings that EOAD manifests clinically in a distinct fashion than LOAD in these domains. In the age of disease‐modifying treatments, results highlight the importance of assessing for cognitive declines in individuals starting much earlier than age 65.

First published in 1997, A Feminist Clinician's Guide to the Memory Debate accomplishes four goals: it publishes a range of chapters which are explicitly feminist to empower feminists, activists, practitioners, scholars, and advocates to be knowledgeable and do the most competent work possible; it helps feminist-friendly clinicians become alert as to how a feminist analysis can expand and contextualize their understanding of the recovered memory controversy; it makes proactive statements of what constitutes ethical, healing treatment for the profoundly deforming experience of child sexual abuse; and it empowers the clinician to be effectively political outside the therapy setting. A Feminist Clinician's Guide to the Memory Debate is an invaluable collection of articles that explores nearly every aspect of the controversy over recovered memories that has shaken public life, the courts, feminist psychotherapy, contemporary psychoanalysis, and cognitive science.

Background Dual decline in gait and cognition is associated with an increased risk of dementia, with the strongest association seen between gait speed and delayed memory. However, the underlying brain correlates remain unknown. This study aimed to explore the associations between regional brain volumes and dual decline in gait speed and delayed memory. Method Participants over 60 years were randomly selected from the Southern Tasmanian electoral roll (Australia). Baseline brain MRI and three serial gait speed and delayed memory assessments were performed on average 2.5 years apart. Participants were classified into four groups depending on tertiles of annual decline in gait speed and memory: non‐decline, gait only, cognition only, and dual decline. Twenty‐one regional brain volumes (in frontal, parietal, temporal, subcortical, brain stem and cerebellar areas) were preselected based on previous studies of gait and memory. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the associations between baseline regional brain volumes and the four groups. Result The mean age of participants was 70.9 ± SD 6.7 years (n = 266). Lower volume in six brain regions (superior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate cortex, middle frontal gyrus, thalamus, orbitofrontal cortex, hippocampus) were associated with a higher risk of dual decline. Lower volumes in the thalamus and cerebellum were associated with a higher risk of gait only and cognitive only decline respectively. However, these associations did not remain significant after correction for multiple comparisons. Conclusion In this exploratory study regions related to memory, executive function, motor, and sensory motor integration were found to have associations with dual decline. Larger studies investigating a wider range of brain pathologies are required to fully understand the mechanisms underlying dual decline.

The covert retrieval model (McCabe, Journal of Memory and Language 58 (2), 480–494, 2008 ) postulates that delayed memory performance is enhanced when the encoding of memoranda in working memory (WM) is interrupted by distraction. When subjects are asked to remember stimuli for an immediate memory test, they usually remember them better when the items are presented without distraction, compared to a condition in which a distraction occurs following each item. In a delayed memory test, this effect has been shown to be reversed: Memory performance is better for items followed by distraction than without. Yet, this so-called McCabe effect has not been consistently replicated in the past. In an extensive replication attempt of a previous study showing the effect for complex visual stimuli, we investigated five potential boundary conditions of the predictions of the covert retrieval model: (1) Type of Stimuli (doors vs. faces), (2) type of distractor (pictures vs. math equations), (3) expectation about task difficulty (mixed vs. blocked lists), (4) memory load in WM (small vs. large), and (5) expectation about the long-term memory (LTM) test (intentional vs. incidental encoding). Across four experiments we failed to replicate the original findings and show that delayed memory for faces and other complex visual stimuli does not benefit from covert retrieval during encoding – as suggested as being induced by distractors. Our results indicate that the transfer of information from WM to LTM does not seem to be influenced by covert retrieval processes, but rather that a fixed proportion of information is laid down as a more permanent trace.

Background The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) is a commonly used inclusionary screening measure of cognition in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) trials. The Wechsler Memory Test‐IV Logical Memory (WMS‐IV LM) subtest has emerged as an additional screening measure to assess episodic memory loss and assist with appropriate enrollment for trials recruiting early AD participants. The WMS‐IV LM II delayed memory score has been utilized for inclusion based on score ranges indicative of episodic memory loss by age The WMS‐IV LM is more time‐intensive and complex for raters to administer. This study investigated the utility of adding WMS‐IV LM at screening. Method Data from two multinational Phase 2 AD trials that utilized the MMSE and WMS‐IV LM as screening measures were included. eCOA alerts were programmed to trigger if a participant did not meet MMSE and/or WMS‐IV LM II inclusionary criteria. These alerts were used to explore the rate of exclusion for each measure. Correlation between WMS‐IV LM II and MMSE total scores was also examined. Result 2517 screening visits where both the MMSE and WMS‐IV LM were administered were included in the analysis. Of these 2517 screening visits, 43% (1089/2517) did not trigger either the WMS‐IV LM II or MMSE exclusion alert. The MMSE exclusion alert alone triggered in 22.73% of the visits (572/2517) and the WMS‐IV LM II exclusion alert alone triggered in 31.70% (798/2517) of the visits. MMSE total scores and WMS‐IV LM II scores were weakly correlated r(2516) = .38, p< .001. Conclusion The present study found that less than half of participants did not screen fail due to MMSE or WMS‐IV LM II inclusionary criteria. About 30% of participants did not screen fail on the MMSE but proceeded to screen fail on the WMS‐IV LM II. This indicates that the WMS‐IV LM II, which is being used as an indicator of episodic memory impairment, provided utility above and beyond a more general and brief screening tool such as the MMSE in these AD trials. Although the WMS‐IV LM II may be cumbersome and lengthy to administer, it appears useful in improving classification of early AD participants.