Transcript Childhood Amnesia - HomePage Server for UT Psychology

Childhood Amnesia
Class 2
Discussion Question
Describe your first memory?
 Include details such as:

 Accuracy
 Perspective
 Coherence
 Confidence
Assessing Earliest MemoryMethod 1

Self-Report- very difficult for adults to
provide precise date unless tied to a
datable event.

Structure-type interview- specific
questions about sibling births, family
move, death of relative, and overnight
hospitalization.
Assessing Earliest MemoryMethod 2

Adults asked to remember as many
memories as possible from specific time
points.

This method has revealed a “forgetting
curve”
Assessing Child Memories:
Deferred Imitation

Meltzoff’s



Simcock & Hayne




9 month-olds imitate unique toy play after delay
Demonstrates that 9 month-olds have declarative, but not
procedural memory
Magic Shrinking Machine. Pre-verbal children can imitate
procedure of magic shrinking machine.
After developing language (and specific words needed for
verbal recall) children cannot verbally recall information, can
only imitate.
Demonstrates that language is important to memory not only
for recall, but also for encoding. Language provides a
mnemonic structure.
Deferred Imitation task passes amnesia test
Childhood Amnesia Facts
Most people have no memories before
age 2.
 The average age of a first memory is 3
1/2
 No correlation between age of first
memory and memory’s trauma

Explaining Childhood Amnesia

Freud(1924/1953): memories too arousing for
the ego are repressed or transformed into
bland ones.

James (1890): General weakness of infantile
mind.
Reminiscence Bump
Discussion Question

Why do you think childhood amnesia
happens?
Psychological Shift

The “psychological shift” occurs around ages
3 to 4 years

Earlier memories forgotten, later memories held
with greater tenacity

Why?
What is Autobiographical Memory?

Autobiographical memory is defined as an explicit
memory of an event that occurred in a specific time
and place in one’s personal past (Nelson and Fivush,
2004).

A.B. Memory also is related to the individual's
emotions, goals, and personal meanings
Discussion Question
 Is A.B.
Memory different from
episodic memory?
Importance of A.B. Memory

Without A.B. memory, there would be no
sense of past or future (Dimasio, 1999).

Without self-awareness and ability to
change perspective (i.e., as third person
or object), we would not know that
memories are remembrance (Conway
and Pleydell-Pearce, 2004).
Reasons for Childhood Amnesia
A.
B.
C.
Immature Brain Hypothesis
Language Hypothesis
Self-Identity Hypothesis
Immature Brain Hypothesis
Patricia Bauer: Through elicited
imitation, we find that long-term recall is
emergent by 9 mo., and is reliable over
2nd year
 Memory is dependent on the
development of two areas in the brain

 Hippocampus
 Prefrontal
Cortex
Hippocampus Location
Hippocampus Purpose
Creating new episodic memories
 Case of H.M.

 Impairment
to episodic memory creation
 No impairment to procedural memory
 H.M. could learn new tasks, but would not
remember how he learned it (the learning
episode)
How is Hippocampus related to
childhood amnesia?

Full hippocampal network coalesces in 2nd
half of 1st year of life- consistent with
emergence of long-term recall

However, babies still demonstrate learning
and memory

Does this research demonstrate an infant’s
use of episodic memory or just procedural?
Prefrontal Cortex Location
Prefrontal Cortex Purpose
Recalling episodic memories
 Case of K.C.--damage to frontal lobes.
Could remember facts learned in past,
but not episodes
 Prefrontal Cortex begins to develop at
age 1.

Research confounding Immature
Brain Hypothesis

Infant Learning & Memory Research
Prenatal/Newborn learning
2. Habituation
3. Object Permanence
4. Classical/Operant Conditioning
1.
1. Prenatal/newborn learning
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Preference to familiar rhyme
(DeCasper, et al. 1994)
 Newborn preference to tastes & smells
experienced in utero (Mennella,
Jagnow & Beauchamp, 2001)
 Preference to mother’s voice--learned
prenatally, demonstrated at birth
(DeCasper & Fifer, 1980)

2. Habituation

Method for assessing infant (pre-verbal)
learning (Thompson & Spencer, 1966)
1. Baby is presented with one
stimulus consistently until
attentive time decreases
(habituation)
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
2. Baby is presented with a
different stimulus.
3. If baby’s attention time
increases, baby has noticed
change (dishabituation)
www.psy.fau.edu/cdlfau/lab%20visit.htm
3. Object Permanence

5 month olds remember objects that are
not perceptually salient
8 month olds motorically
demonstrate object permanence
(Piaget)
12 month-olds pass A not B task
18 month-olds pass container
transfer task
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
www.aplaceofourown.org
4. Classical & Operant
Conditioning
Infants demonstrate learning through
classical and operant conditioning
 Sucking more vigorously to hear familiar
sounds or sweet tastes (DeCasper &
Spence, 1986)
 Kicking feet vigorously to activate mobile
(Rovee-Collier)

 mobile
movie
Discussion
What kind of memory do these
experiments exhibit?
 How are these experiments related to
the topic of childhood amnesia and the
development of autobiographical
memory?

Reasons for Childhood Amnesia

B.
C.
Immature Brain Hypothesis
Language Hypothesis
Self-Identity Hypothesis
Language Hypothesis

Nelson & Fivush, Simcock & Hayne

Early memories can’t be verbally recalled
because they weren’t verbally encoded

Language provides a structure for
encoding memories
Language and A.B. Memory
1.
Language is instrumental in how A.B. memories are
organized
2.
As language develops, children practice, through
dialogue, expressing past memories in a coherent
fashion.
3.
Dialogue facilitates awareness that memories are
representations of past events, which helps
develop use of multiple perspectives
Evidence for the Importance of Language in
Development of A.B. Memory

Peterson and Rideout (1998) assessed 1and 2- year olds who had been sent to the
hospital for an illness or injury.

Children who could not verbalize their
experience at time of injury were not able to
verbally report accurate information even
AFTER later language abilities were
developed.
Adult Role in Memory Development

Pipe, Dean, Canning, and Murachver (1996)
study found that children who participated in
a novel pirate event with full narration were
better able to verbally recall their experience
and exhibited less recall errors than children
who experienced the empty narration.
Maternal Role in Memory Development

Maternal reminiscing style has enduring
influence on development of A.B.
memory skills.

Maternal reminiscing stable over time
and children play an important role in
the eliciting and sustaining of maternal
elaboration.
Cultural & Gender Differences in
Memory Development




Females more detailed than males
Parents talk to female children more detailed than
males
Girls’ autobiographies decidedly more detailed,
coherent, and emotionally saturated than boys’ in
pre-school
Cultural differences- Americans more detailed
reminiscent styles than Asians
Reasons for Childhood Amnesia


C.
Immature Brain Hypothesis
Language Hypothesis
Self-Identity Hypothesis
Self-Identity Hypothesis
Mark Howe, Conway & PleydellPearce
It’s not that child suddenly remembers
events


1.
2.
*
integrity or quality of memory traces
durability of memory traces
both are due to advent of cognitive self
Child Development of Self

18-24 month olds recognize themselves in a mirror-“Rouge Test” (Lewis & Brooks-Gunn, 1979)

2 year-olds begin using self-reflexive language such as
“mine” (Bates, 1990) which helps them create personal
narratives (Harter, 1998)

2-3 yrs, children experience self-emotions like
embarrassment and shame (Lewis, 1995, 1998) &
demonstrate self-assertion (a.k.a. Terrible Two’s)

3 yrs, develop Theory of Mind (my thoughts are my
own)
Howe: Development of Self

Self- aids in organization of memories

Maturationally driven, not socially or experientially
 Harley & Reese, 1999: self-recognition and
specific event memory
 Howe, Courage & Edison, in press: Selfrecognizers vs. non-self-recognizers
 Longitudinally, no child was successful on
event memory task prior to achieving selfrecognition
Harley & Reese, 1999:
Linguists vs. Self-theorists

BOTH maternal reminiscing style AND
children’s self-recognition strong and
unique predictors of children’s very early
ability to talk about the past
Linguists are Right
Maternal reminiscing style was strong
predictor of children’s memory
elaborations with their mothers over
time
 Some children enter autobiographical
memory system through linguistic
means prior to achieving selfrecognition

Self-Theorists are Right, too
 Self-recognition
 uniquely
at 19 mo.
predicted children’s shared memory
elaborations, but not their memory repetitions in
conversation with mothers
 also strongly predicted children’s independent
memory elaborations with a researcher
 Early recognizers progressed faster in their
memory reports than later recognizers
Summary of Childhood Amnesia
Theories

Episodic and autobiographical memories may be poor in the first
few years of life due to immature brain development (Bauer. 2002)

Primarily A.B. memory serves social and cultural and A.B. memory
is not developed until the child possesses the language skills to tell
a narrative story (Nelson and Fivush, 2004).

A.B. memory emerges when “cognitive self” is developed and
memories can use self as a reference point (Howe and Courage,
1997).