The Development of Forgetting: Childhood Amnesia

Bauer, Patricia J.

doi:10.1002/9781118597705.ch22

Cited by 18 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…Studies in which children are asked to report their earliest memories provide evidence of amnesia for early-life events by the end of the first decade of life (Peterson, Grant, & Boland, 2005; Reese, Jack, & White, 2010; Tustin & Hayne, 2010). The findings stand in sharp contrast to the large literature documenting that even young children form and retain autobiographical memories (see, for e.g., Bauer, 2014; Reese, 2014, for reviews). They compel investigation of the processes involved in loss of access to memories of early-life events, heralding the onset of childhood amnesia (Bauer, 2012, 2014).…”

contrasting

confidence: 99%

“…The findings stand in sharp contrast to the large literature documenting that even young children form and retain autobiographical memories (see, for e.g., Bauer, 2014; Reese, 2014, for reviews). They compel investigation of the processes involved in loss of access to memories of early-life events, heralding the onset of childhood amnesia (Bauer, 2012, 2014). We report the results of a prospective study in which we addressed this question and also examined one potential determinant of the preservation of early memories beyond the onset of childhood amnesia, namely, maternal narrative style.…”

contrasting

confidence: 99%

“…That is, the phenomenon was defined in terms of the age of earliest memory among adults, and the distribution of early memories recalled by adults (see Bauer, 2007, 2008, 2014, for reviews). Data from children are a relatively recent addition to the empirical landscape of childhood amnesia.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The onset of childhood amnesia in childhood: A prospective investigation of the course and determinants of forgetting of early-life events

Bauer

Larkina

2013

Memory

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The present research was an examination of the onset of childhood amnesia and how it relates to maternal narrative style, an important determinant of autobiographical memory development. Children and their mothers discussed unique events when the children were 3 years of age. Different subgroups of children were tested for recall of the events at ages 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 years. At the later session, they were interviewed by an experimenter about the events discussed 2 to 6 years previously with their mothers (early-life events). Children ages 5, 6, and 7 remembered 60% or more of the early-life events. In contrast, children ages 8 and 9 years remembered fewer than 40% of the early-life events. Overall maternal narrative style predicted children's contributions to mother-child conversations at age 3 years; it did not have cross-lagged relations to memory for early-life events at ages 5 to 9 years. Maternal deflections of the conversational turn to the child predicted the amount of information children later reported about the early-life events. The findings have implications for our understanding of the onset of childhood amnesia and the achievement of an adult-like distribution of memories in the school years. They highlight the importance of forgetting processes in explanations of the amnesia.

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contrasting

confidence: 99%

contrasting

confidence: 99%

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The onset of childhood amnesia in childhood: A prospective investigation of the course and determinants of forgetting of early-life events

Bauer

Larkina

2013

Memory

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“…Others undergo a protracted course of development that extends into adolescence (see Bauer, 2006Bauer, , 2007Bauer, , 2014Richman and Nelson, 2008, for discussions). The long, slow course of development of the neural structures and network responsible for memory means that throughout infancy and for much of childhood, the processes by which new memories are formed, stabilized, and integrated into long-term storage are relatively ineffective and inefficient.…”

Section: Neural Systems Of Memorymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Over the preschool years, children's memories take on more and more autobiographical features (see Bauer, 2007Bauer, , 2014, for discussions). For example, from a very young age, children include references to themselves in their narratives: "I fell down."…”

Section: Emergence In the Preschool Yearsmentioning

confidence: 98%