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 mind 1890 General weakness of infantile 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 Immature Brain Hypothesis B Language Hypothesis C Self Identity Hypothesis A 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 1 2 3 4 Prenatal Newborn learning Habituation Object Permanence Classical Operant Conditioning 1 Prenatal newborn learning Preference QuickTime and a TIFF LZW decompressor are needed to see this picture 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 Immature Brain Hypothesis B Language Hypothesis C 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
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