Childhood Amnesia

Childhood Amnesia

A fundamental aspect of human memory is that the more time elapsed since an event, the fainter the memory becomes. This has been shown to be true on a relatively linear scale with the exception of our first three to four years of life (Fitzgerald, 1991). It is even common for adults not to have any memory before the age of six or seven. The absence of memory in these first years has sparked much interest as to how and why it happens. Ever since Freud (1916/1963) first popularized the phenomenon there have been many questions and few robust empirical studies. Childhood amnesia is defined as the period of life from which no events are remembered (Usher & Neisser, 1993) beginning at birth and ending at the onset of your first memories. The implications of why this occurs are important for the understanding of how our memory system develops and the memory formation process. Research Limitations: There have been many hypothesized causes for childhood amnesia but very little strong evidence to support them. This problem arises out of the difficulty of obtaining reliable information pertaining to this area of study. Research is only as good as the information used. Most studies have used adult participants who are asked to report their earliest memories and the date. There are several factors contributing to the unreliability of this data. In a self-report method, people often have difficulty pinpointing what their earliest memory is and even more difficulty getting an accurate date. Verification of the memories is also a problem since it is nearly impossible to design and conduct a study that observes the initial experience to compare with the subsequent recall. The experience reported by a participant can often be...

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...ucture, connections and maturity of the brain. The second regards the lack of functional capabilities present during this time period. We do have evidence that suggests infants do retain information for long periods of time so we can conclude that some mechanisms for storage of memory exist in the first few months of life. The only solid evidence regarding this phenomenon is the age at which adults can recall their first experiences (approximately three years old). There is no dispute that the first three years of life are essential to the development and growth throughout the rest of childhood and adolescence. In reference to this fact, it is quite odd that we can remember very few specific events from this time frame. Perhaps the only the most important knowledge is retained; the implicit, procedural and motor knowledge that will aid us for the rest of our lives.