ABSTRACT
One of the fundamental themes that runs though the literature on children's eyewitness memory research is a conflict between basic research and applied research. The relationships between basic science and technology in terms of knowledge transfer show the same diversity. An issue that becomes tangled up with ecological validity is the issue of laboratory versus nonlaboratory research. Researchers in the area of human memory have good reason to be cautious on the issue. The issue of making the leap from empirical studies to the relevant real-world phenomena is crucial for research on child eyewitness memory. A generic recollective memory is a generic memory produced by having experienced a number of similar individual episodes. It frequently includes generic visual imagery and is not experienced as representing a unique event from the individual's life. One of the frequent types of cases that involve child testimony are cases of repeated sexual abuse.
