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Updated: Aug 16, 2026

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
"Amnesia" for summer camps and high school graduation: memory work increases reports of prior periods of remembering
1University of Lethbridge, Canada. jdread@uvic.ca
Abstract:
Claims regarding amnesia for childhood sexual abuse have often been based on studies of adults' responses to questions of the form, "Was there ever a period of time when you remembered less of the abuse than you do now?" In this experiment, 43 adult (mean age = 42) participants rated their current and prior memories of several nontraumatic childhood/adolescent events. Reports of prior periods of less memory were fairly common. Participants then engaged in "reminiscence" or "enhanced" retrieval activities directed toward remembering more about a selected target event. Following retrieval, 35% of the reminiscence condition participants reported prior poor memory for the target event, as did 70% of the enhanced condition. These results highlight the need for appropriate control conditions in retrospective studies of amnesia for childhood trauma.
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