Unit 7: Childhood Memory

Memory in Infancy and how it is studied

+Infants cant talk +Habituation- getting someone use to a stimulus, show an infant a stimulus, infant focuses on it, after a while gets use to it and then looks away. +They show babies patterns and time how long they look at it +Mobile-kicking paradigm- attach string to foot and mobile, when they kick mobile moves, babies learn to kick to move mobile Context dependent Memory for sequences- learn to put things together, learning does occur

Childhood Amnesia

Definition-inability to remember events from early childhood( from 0 to~3)

Research

How do you study memory in general? Memories are susceptible to suggestion How do you research childhood memories specifically? Who are the participants? How can you assess accuracy? How do you distinguish between memory of the event and memory for later recall of that memory? Most of the studies have small sample sizes Especially longitudinal studies

Retrieval

Adults cannot remember childhood because the memories cannot be accessed in adulthood -Adults lack proper schemas- they have developed new ones that are used. Old ones cant be accessed +supported more than repression but still not generally excepted

Encoding Theory

Adults cannot remember childhood because the memories were never encoded properly

Repression

Adults cannot remember childhood because their subconscious represses the memories to protect the person +infintile sexuality (Oedipus Complex) Ch. 28- a piece from Freud, he psychoanaylses a famous poet from Germany and a memory that he writes about. Freud concludes that his memories early memories are rooted in jealousy for his mothers love.

Encoding

Brain Development- brain is not fully developed so memories cannot be encoded properly Language Development-when we develop language skills we can communicate our memories with others, thus allowing us to rehearse the memory. Memory develops around the same time as language development Social Interaction Model- children are asked to recall memories of events thus learning how to communicate about memories and how to develope memories- learnn to structure memories in narrative form memory talk- talking to babies about their memories elaborate- narrative, more details wanted- who, what, when, where, when? pragmatic- one specific fact- where are your gloves? babies more talkative with elaborative mothers If societies differ in how they talk to babies it will result in effects of childhood amnesia, gender also plays a role. Parents talk more to girls so they should beable to have earlier memories

Domain Knowledge

List recall is better for areas you know more about Children outperformed college students on remembering a list of child-domain items (e.g., cartoon character names, kid's video games, etc.) Processing and recall are faster for domains you know More time to rehearse

Memory strategies

Rehearsal- repeat, older children rehearse more than younger Retrieval cues-Can remember autobiographical events better with retrieval cues than free recall

how memory changes as children age

Speed of Processing Younger children take more time processing Correlated with speech rate Immediate Memory Capacity Older children have greater short-term memory capacity