ABSTRACT
False memories are possible and relatively easy for people to develop memories for events that they have never experienced. False memories, including autobiographical memory and event-based memories have been induced in a range of experimental conditions. This chapter indicates that even brief exposure to misinformation can result in durable long-term false memories. In some circumstances, children have been shown to be less susceptible to erroneous or false memory creation, especially for negative events, than adolescents and adults, a phenomenon called the "developmental reversal effect". The corollary of false memory creation is the capacity to reject the occurrence of false events. The debate about the scientific validity of so-called recovered memories of child sexual abuse raged unabated through the 1980s and 1990s, costing communities millions of dollars in legal fees investigating and prosecuting alleged perpetrators and destroying the lives of innocent people caught up in the hysteria.
