GORDON KEENE VELLA. - On Point News
GORDON KEENE VELLA. - On Point News
GORDON KEENE VELLA. - On Point News
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subjects are asked if they recall having been sexually abused in the past. The individuals are<br />
then asked if they ever did not remember having been sexually abused. Generally, a small<br />
percentage of the participants say “yes.”<br />
Dr. Brown cites as supportive of dissociative amnesia these studies where people selfreport<br />
that they forgot some traumatic event and then later remembered it. However, Dr. Brown<br />
does not explain that almost none of those studies made an effort to validate or explain the<br />
meaning of a “yes” answer. (Pope Decl. 14.)<br />
For example, Dr. Brown cites a study by Melchert and Parker as one of the “87” peer<br />
review studies that supports his hypothesis. (See Tr. Ex 7 at 3.) As one of the few studies cited<br />
by Dr. Brown where an attempt was made to assess the validity of a “yes” answer, the results<br />
here are particularly compelling with regard to Dr. Brown’s persistent misrepresentation of<br />
scientific authority. In that study, individuals who claimed to have had a period of forgetting<br />
were given the opportunity to answer a multiple choice question exploring what they meant by<br />
having a period of forgetting. (Pope Decl. 15, Ex. 1-3 (referencing the Melchert and Parker<br />
study.))<br />
The unmistakable conclusion from that study is that it offers no support for Dr. Brown’s<br />
hypothesis notwithstanding his assertion to the contrary. Participants were permitted to choose<br />
from various options to explain their responses that they had once “forgotten” the abuse, such as<br />
“because I didn’t want to think about it,” and “because I was afraid of remembering it.” The<br />
option closest to “complete forgetting” was “because I simply had no memories of it ever<br />
happening.” Yet not one of the 46 subjects reporting that they had forgotten responded that they<br />
simply had no memories of it ever happening. Despite that fact, Dr. Brown presents the<br />
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