Remembering what never occurred? Children’s false memories for repeated experiences


“Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.” “Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn’t possibly have happened.” ─ Miss Prism and Cecily conversing about Cecily’s diary in Oscar Wilde’s play, “The Importance of Being Earnest”, from 1895. In 2016 a thirteen-year-old girl identified as Autumn approached the police in Keighley, England, with a sexual abuse account. She reported that she had been sexually abused by 12 different men for over 13 months between 2011 and 2012, when she was only 8-9 years old. Despite details she…