PSYCH 140M Lecture Notes - Lecture 40: Childhood Amnesia, Autobiographical Memory, Psych
Document Summary
Rovee-collier (1989): children as young as 2-3 months can learn associations, including generalization and discrimination of stimuli. Nelson (1989): children that are just barely starting to talk can recall specific events from even earlier. Rovee-collier (1989): that reminders work for 2-3 month old babies suggests that there is not a failure to store information, but trouble retrieving it. Possible causes of infantile amnesia: development of the cognitive self. Infantile amnesia depends on development of cognitive self. Theory: infants can only form autobiographical memories after they"ve developed a sense of self, making events personally significant. Sneakily applied red dot to infants" noses. If child is self-aware they will touch their own nose. If child is not self-aware, will point at child in mirror. Virtually no infants show self-awareness in first year of life. About 70% of infants show self-awareness between 21-24 months.
