Faculty of Law, Leuven Institute of Criminology, KU Leuven, Belgium.
Forensic Psychology Section, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Behav Sci Law. 2022 May;40(3):433-451. doi: 10.1002/bsl.2566. Epub 2022 Feb 22.
Victims of abuse might deny their traumatic experiences. We studied mnemonic effects of simulating false denial of a child sexual abuse narrative. Participants (N = 127) read and empathized with the main character of this narrative. Next, half were instructed to falsely deny abuse-related information while others responded honestly in an interview. One week later, participants received misinformation for the narrative and interview. In a final source memory task, participants' memory for the narrative and interview was tested. Participants who falsely denied abuse-related information endorsed more abuse-unrelated misinformation about the event than honest participants. Abuse-related false memory rates did not statistically differ between the groups, and false denials were not related to omission errors about (1) the interview and (2) narrative. Hence, victim's memory for abuse-related information related to their experience might not be affected by a false denial, and inconsistencies surrounding the abuse-unrelated information are more likely to take place.
受虐者可能会否认他们的创伤经历。我们研究了模拟儿童性虐待叙述的虚假否认对记忆的影响。参与者（N=127）阅读并同情了这个叙述的主角。接下来，一半的人被指示虚假否认与虐待有关的信息，而其他人则在面试中诚实地回答。一周后，参与者收到了有关叙述和面试的错误信息。在最后一个来源记忆任务中，测试了参与者对叙述和面试的记忆。与诚实的参与者相比，虚假否认与虐待有关的信息的参与者更赞同与事件无关的与虐待有关的错误信息。两组之间的与虐待有关的虚假记忆率没有统计学差异，虚假否认与（1）面试和（2）叙述的遗漏错误无关。因此，受害者对与虐待有关的信息的记忆可能不会受到虚假否认的影响，而与虐待无关的信息的不一致更有可能发生。
