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Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for

Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences
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Lingering difficulties distinguishing true from false

memories: A comment on Shevrins psychoanalytic
view of memory by Daniel M. Bernstein and
Elizabeth F. Loftus (University of Washington)
a

Daniel M. Bernstein & Elizabeth F. Loftus

University of Washington
Published online: 09 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Daniel M. Bernstein & Elizabeth F. Loftus (2002) Lingering difficulties distinguishing true from
false memories: A comment on Shevrins psychoanalytic view of memory by Daniel M. Bernstein and Elizabeth F. Loftus
(University of Washington), Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences,
4:2, 140-142, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2002.10773391
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2002.10773391

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140
the real world. These latter considerations as yet
play no role in cognitive or neuroscience research.
Our eort at investigating unconscious conict
from psychodynamic, cognitive and neurophysiological perspectives remains to the best of our
knowledge an interesting but isolated instance.
We need a theory of memory in which motivational and cognitive factors can be independently
assessed and their interactions investigated. In
what way do real perceptions of signicant others
become distorted under the inuence of desires
and wishes that cannot be given expression. It is
from this point of view heartening that there is
evidence that despite suggestion and misinformation the original perceptions need not be erased;
they are retrievable once the misinformation, the
distortions, have been identied, for example, in
the transference.
In counterdistinction to the constructivist
position maintained by some psychoanalysts,
Freud (1911) conceived of neurosis as alienating
the individual from reality. He stated, ``. . . every
neurosis has as its result, and therefor probably
its purpose, a forcing of the patient out of
reality . . .'' (p. 218). We see this operative in
defenses. Repression surrenders knowledge in the
face of conict and anxiety; isolation surrenders
the natural connections between aect and
thought; projection imposes the individual's own
disavowed thought, motivation or feeling upon
another. A symptom results in an avoidance of
some piece of reality as in a phobia. The social
phobic patients in our study of unconscious
processes avoided parties, gatherings, opportunities to speak or perform, which adversely
aected their careers and futures. Neurosis
alienates the neurotic from reality not simply
from his or her version of reality. We cannot
know a projection unless we distinguish between

Daniel M. Bernstein and Elizabeth F. Loftus

it and a perception of reality shared by the rest of
us but not by the neurotic, which of course could
be any of us at any particular time. In fact, what
is often the case is that we shift our perspectives
internally all the time from neurotic distortion
one moment to realistic perception the next. To
the extent that our memories remain subject to
what we desire them to be rather than what we
perceive to be the case, we are hampered by
neurotic limitations on our ability to deal with
reality successfully. Therefore successful treatment must assist the patient to resolve neurotic
distortions of reality including neurotic distortions of reality. From this vantage point it is
not enough to help the patient arrive at a coherent
view of his or her life, free of internal contradictions, a story nally without gaps and
inconsistencies. The story must correspond to a
reality previously ignored or distorted, which
includes importantly how the reality of the
analysis has been neurotically ignored and
distorted. Again it is relevant to underscore the
ndings that memory traces need not be eaced
by distortion, but can be retrieved unchanged. A
perception leaves a ``sensory signature'' (Fabiani).
A false memory does not. Moreover, the clinician
can rely on cues revealed in the telling which
reveal whether something that happened is being
described, a perception of reality that has left a
``sensory signature,'' or whether it is a distortion
or largely a fantasy (Schooler). Research has
demonstrated that this is possible. Indeed
clinicians, as well as the rest of us, are doing
this all the time with greater or lesser success.
Freud referred to this process as reality testing,
or the totality of the means we use for determining with some probability, but no certainty,
what is true from what is false in our memories
and perceptions.

Lingering difficulties distinguishing true from false memories:

A comment on Shevrin's psychoanalytic view of memory by Daniel M. Bernstein and Elizabeth F. Loftus
(University of Washington)

Shevrin brings to bear cognitive and neuroscience

research to develop a psychoanalytic theory of
memory. Armed with this research, he argues that
it is possible to objectively distinguish true from
false memories. Indeed this purported ability is
one of the key foundations of his overall theory.
According to Shevrin, it should be possible to
locate the original (true) memory of a given

experience through a close examination of the

patient's transference. Shevrin bases this conclusion, in large part, on the behavioral work
(exemplied by studies such as Schooler, Gerhard
and Loftus, 1986) and neurophysiological work
(for example, by Fabiani, Stadler and Wessels,
2000).
Consider rst the actual behavioral data

Downloaded by [Adelphi University] at 23:38 22 August 2014

Commentary on A Psychoanalytic View of Memory

upon which Shevrin relies for his faith in the
ability to distinguish true and false memories. To
appreciate our argument that his faith is misplaced, a few methodological details are important to recount. In one study, Schooler et al.
(1986) showed a simulated accident in which a red
Datsun passed an intersection with a yield sign
(for some subjects). For other subjects, there was
no sign, but a yield sign was suggested to have
occurred. Later, when subjects were tested for
their memory of the accident details, 76% of the
``real yield'' subjects, and 25% of the ``suggested
yield'' subjects claimed to have seen the sign, and
wrote out a description of what they saw. A
comparison of the ``real'' and ``suggested'' reports
revealed some statistical dierences. The ``real''
subjects expressed more condence that they had
seen the sign (2.84 versus 2.57 on a 3-point scale).
Moreover, the descriptions of the ``real'' subjects
diered on a variety of dimensions. For example,
41% of the ``real'' descriptions contained at least
one sensory attribute (e.g., size, color of the sign),
compared to 19% of the ``suggested'' descriptions. Also 12% of the ``real'' descriptions
contained at least one verbal hedge (e.g., ``I
think'', ``I believe''), compared to 38% of the
``suggested'' descriptions.
Thus, armed with a group of true and a
group of false memory reports, Schooler et al.
(1986) were able to show some statistical dierences between the two subject groups. And when
given this list of dierences, judges improved their
ability to discriminate between true and false
memories. So, in one study, judges accurately
classied a suggested memory 52% of the time
with the ``list'' and only 46% of the time without
the ``list.'' How impressed should we be with these
ndings? According to Shevrin, very impressed:
``the clinician can rely on cues revealed in the
telling [memory report] which reveal whether
something that happened is being described, a
perception of reality that has left a ``sensory
signature,'' or whether it is a distortion or largely
a fantasy'' (p. 17). Despite Shevrin's optimism,
the rather small (albeit statistically signicant)
dierences may be of little use in helping people
classify any single memory description. For
example, if a memory report contains one sensory
detail, how should it be classied? Worse still,
what if it contains one sensory detail and one
verbal hedge? It is evident that using the ndings
of Schooler et al. in any practical setting is limited.
To drive this point further, we provide
another analogy. We know that men and women
dier statistically in terms of average height. In
fact, in the world of individual dierences, this
may be one of the most reliable ways that men

141
and women dier. But say an individual is about
to arrive at your oce, and all you know is that
the person is 5'9''. Is it a man or woman?
Successful classication might be greater than
chance, but it would be so far from perfect that it
would unlikely be practical.
Matters don't get any better when one moves
from trac signs to complex autobiographical
memories. Suppose the trac sign results could
be used to more reliably distinguish true and false
memories. Can they generalize to more complex
memories? Would anyone feel comfortable taking
an autobiographical report (e.g., ``When I was a
kid I broke a window playing ball'') and
comfortably declaring that this was a real
experience as opposed to one that was hijacked
from another source (e.g., from one's friend)? If
so, on what basis would one feel comfortable
making such a declaration?
Similar problems arise when one considers
the practical value of the neurophysiological data
that Shevrin cites as well as other relevant data in
the literature. Fabiani et al. (2000) used eventrelated potentials (ERPs) to discriminate between
true and false memories. These authors found
that true memories leave a ``sensory signature'' in
the brain, while false memories do not. In other
work, Schacter and colleagues (Schacter et al.,
1996) used positron emission tomography (PET)
to examine true and false memories. Schacter
pointed to the fact that brain activity was
``overall, remarkably similar during true and false
recognition'' (Schacter, 2001, p. 99). He also
noted that there were dierent areas of the brain
that were more active during false than true
memories (frontal lobe), and dierent parts of the
brain that were more active during true than false
memories (the region of the left temporal lobe
that stores the sounds of words).
Just as with the Fabiani et al. (2000) results,
the results of the Schacter et al. (1996) study were
based on statistical/group data of the average
``true'' and the average ``false'' memory for
previously presented words. Using either set of
results, one would be hard pressed to reliably
classify an individual memory report as being true
or false. But matters may be even worse than this
for the Schacter et al. ndings. Not long after the
initial study, Schacter et al. (1997) failed to
replicate the earlier temporal lobe region results
when they used a dierent neuroimaging tool,
fMRI, and a dierent experimental design,
random versus blocked presentation of test items.
Thus, neurophysiological tools such as PET,
fMRI and ERPs may not be as useful as they
appear to be when used to discriminate between
true and false memories.

142
Overall, we question the evidence that
Shevrin garners in support of his claim that true
and false memories are distinguishable. A closer
look at this evidence reveals that we are a long
way away from being able to accurately classify
true and false memories. We might be able to
guess whether an individual's memory report is
true or false, but we still cannot say with any
degree of certainty whether the memory is real or
illusory.

References

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Fabiani, M., Stadler, M. A., & Wessels, P. M. (2000),

True but not false memories produce a sensory

Bonnie Smolen
signature in human lateralized brain potentials.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12: 941949.
Schooler, J. W., Gerhard, D., & Loftus, E. F. (1986).
Qualities of the unreal. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 12:
171181.
Schacter, D. L. (2001), The Seven Sins of Memory.
New York: Houghton Miin & Co.
Schacter, D. L., Buckner, R. L., Koustaal, W., Dale,
A. M., & Rosen, B. R. (1997), Late onset of anterior
prefrontal activity during true and false recognition:
an event-related fMRI study. Neuroimage, 6: 259
269.
Schacter, D. L., Reiman, E., Curran, T., Yun, L. S.,
Bandy, D., McDermott, K. B., & Roediger, H. L.
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Commentary by Bonnie Smolen, Ed.D.

Howard Shevrin has been among the few

farsighted psychoanalytic thinkers trying to meet
the challenge to ``withstand, absorb, and transcend'' the new conceptual waves coming from
cognitive science and neurobiology (Opatow,
1997, p. 865). While research at the interface of
psychoanalysis and neuroscience has now become
fashionable, Dr. Shevrin is among the very few
analysts who have actually mastered the conceptual and methodological terrain of neuropsychology. (See also, from very dierent
theoretical and methodological perspectives,
Bucci, 1997; Kaplan-Solms and Solms, 2000).
For decades, he has been constructing and
reporting an elegant series of experiments
designed to challenge, amplify and validate
essential tenets of both neuropsychology and
psychoanalytic theory. Of equal importance,
throughout his career, in publications on subjects
such as aect, drive, repression and memory, he
has demonstrated a long-held commitment to
rening and updating the fundamental premises
of analytic theory.
In this paper, Shevrin has gone beyond the
challenge of absorbing and responding to neurobiological and cognitive theory generated from
laboratory research to attempt to use that data to
resolve some of the current controversies over
elemental questions of clinical theory and therapeutic change, questions as basic as the importance of veridicality of memory and the lifting of
repression vs. the contemporary constructivist

emphasis on coherence in personal narrative; or

the seemingly unanswerable question, framed by
the concept of repetition compulsion, of whether
transferential enactments can represent learned
behavior scripted by procedural memory or
whether they always must be understood as the
outcome of conicted, dynamic unconscious
processes. These disputes reemerge regularly in
the history of psychoanalysis, each time in
semantic garb slightly dierent and unique to
the particular period, and they provoke often
passionate attempts to resolve them by a marshalling of clinical data. Unfortunately, clinical data
is inherently ambiguous and never seems to
resolve the arguments, which eventually quiet
themselves until they emerge a few years later
once again in new terminological dress. Instead of
once more trying to settle these perpetual questions by theoretical argument or a mobilization of
clinical evidence, Shevrin takes a very dierent
tack, apparently believing that they can be
understood, at least partially, as testable hypotheses and perhaps even resolved by laboratory
data.
Shevrin frames two fundamental questions at
the start of his paper:
1.
2.

Is it possible to distinguish veridical from

constructed or false memories? and
What role does consciousness play in
memory formation and retrieval?
In this form, these are questions for cognitive