翻訳お願いします
Once upon a time, there was a case history involving a 14-yers-old boy named Chris. He had been misled to believe and remember that he had been lost in a shopping mall at about the age of 5, that he had been frightened and was crying, and that he had ultimately been rescued by an elderly person and reunited with his family. Chris was partly responsible for inspiring a variety of empirical efforts to create entirely false memories of childhood.
At the University of Washington, my collaborators and I conducted a study using a simple method that was similar to the one Chris had experienced.
The subjects were 24 individuals who were asked to recall events that were supposedly supplied by a close relative. Three of the events were true, and one was a false event about getting lost in a shopping mall, department store, or other public place. The subjects, who ranged in age from 18 to 53, thought they were taking part in a study of childhood memories. At the outset, each subject completed a booklet said to contain four short stories about events from his or her childhood provided by a parent, sibling, or other older relative. Three events had actually happened, and the fourth, always in the third position, was false. Each event was described in a single paragraph.
The false event was constructed from information provided by the relative, who was asked where the family would have shopped when the subject was about 5 years old, which members of the family usually went along on shopping trips, and what kinds of stores might have attracted the subject’s interest. The relative was also asked to verify that the subject had not been lost in a mall around the age of 5. The false events always included the following elements: that the subject (a) was lost in a mall, large department store, or other public place for an extended period of time at about the age of 5, (b) cried, (c) was found and aided by an elderly woman, and (d) was reunited with the family.
Subjects completed the booklets by reading about each event and then writing what they remembered about each event. If they did not remember an event, they were told to write, “I do not remember this.”
When the booklets were returned, subjects were called and scheduled for two interviews that occurred approximately 1 to 2 weeks apart. Subjects thought the study was about how their memories compared with those of their relative. Across the interviews, subjects remembered something about 68% of the true events about which they were questioned. The rate of “remembering” the false event was lower: 25% remembered the event, fully or partially.
