This week our guest is Dr. Maryanne Garry, a professor from the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Dr. Garry is a scientific researcher into memory, memory distortions, false memories, the myth of repression and its overlap with the law. This is her third appearance on Chit Chat Across the Pond, and has pretty much ruined everything we think we knew about memory.
Questions I asked Dr. Garry:
- Do you look for things to study that have a specific problem to be solved? Secondarily – how are these projects funded?
- What is a cognitive psychologist, and what other kind is there?
- Can you explain the difference between autobiographical and semantic memories?
- Why do we have some things that are easy to remember and others (like names and dates) that are more difficult to remember
- Some medical procedures include a drug to make you forget. How do we know these memories of a horrible experience aren’t still there, buried? And couldn’t these memories be harmful?
- Much of your work is about proving that you can implant false memories. Because you can do that, do we actually know that real repressed memories don’t exist?
- How is it some adults can recall traumatic childhood memories with such vivid detail?
- You’ve recently received a significant grant. Can you tell us about the new research?
- Your research was published in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition about the concept of making America Great Again. This paper was cited in The Guardian. Can you tell us what you’ve learned?
Video of Dr. Garry’s talk “The End of Facts” at Claremont Graduate University. Thanks to Steve for capturing this.