Infantile amnesia has been studied by many researchers without a concrete answer. The topic has been a significant and mysterious topic not only in the field of research, but also in media such as the film, Baby Geniuses. While there is a more complex story line to the movie, it discusses the idea of infantile amnesia and gives its own perspective as to what occurs during the first couple years of a child’s life. While the movie initiated the thesis behind the essay, the study conducted by researchers Tiffany West and Patricia Bauer aim to explain the differences in early and later memories in hopes of finding an answer to infantile amnesia. The results indicate that there may be a connection between infantile amnesia and Piaget’s stages of …show more content…
What the woman discovers is that infants are born with important knowledge about the world but when they “cross over,” officially known as infantile amnesia, they lose all knowledge and forget the secrets of the universe. When one child escapes from the lab, he finds a family with a child that looks exactly like him and allows the “henchmen” to take the lookalike, called Whit, who later turns out to be his twin, back to the laboratory. The rest of the movie revolves around Sly trying to save his friends from the laboratory. One of the major focuses throughout the movie is the idea that infantile amnesia or what they refer to as “crossing over”, causes the infants to forget about the knowledge they once had of the world thus leading to the examination of the idea throughout this …show more content…
(Bauer, 2004) While there is not one specific theory that is considered the true answer as to why people cannot remember events prior to the age of about three, there are several possible theories. The first theory is associated with Piaget’s stages of development theory, specifically the sensorimotor stage which takes place from birth to about two years of age. This theory will be discussed later in the essay but it involves the fact that during this stage, infants gain all information from their senses (i.e. smell, touch, taste, etc.) but in the subsequent stages later in life they receive and retain information using more complex processes. Therefore, the sensory information is overridden and the memories acquired during the sensorimotor stage are forgotten. The next theory involves memory capabilities. According to a study about memory retention, infants are able to retain information for a few days while at eighteen months can retain information for about three months. (Rovee-Collier and Barr, 2001.) This leads researchers to believe that because information is only retained for a few months and then is lost, that may be the cause of infantile amnesia. Another possible explanation for the phenomenon was suggested by the neurologist, Sigmund Freud who believed that infantile amnesia is caused by the repression of
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget pioneered the clinical view of cognitive development, stressing that individuals construct their own knowledge through environmental, biological, and social interactions. To make sense of the world, children attain new information and skills by adapting to changes caused by a disequilibrium in their accustomed knowledge and experiences. Through four overlapping stages of growth, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development emphasizes the role of disequilibrium in infantile schemes, assimilation, and accommodation.
This case study is based on Piaget’s theory of Cognitive development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence that is based mainly off of age, and was first developed by Jean Piaget. I will be testing this theory out on a six year old boy who I will call “Jordan.” I will be checking to see if Jordan falls in to the Preoperational stage of Cognitive development which ranges from age 2 until approximately age 7 and if he is in transition to Concrete Operational stage which ranges from age 7 until about 11 years. The following questions will be answered: Does he interpret language literally? Does he understand conservation? Does he think of things in terms of his own activities? Does he solve problems by pretending or imitating? Does Jordan have approximately 2000 words in his vocabulary?
Swiss theorist Jean Piaget constructed the multi-stage cognitive-development theory, which suggests that as a child develops and explores their different environments, their brain is also developing, these advancements are characterised by different ways of thinking during the different stages (Lamdin & Lamdin-Hunter, 2012). Using John Bowlby’s theory of attachment in conjunction with Piaget’s cognitive-development theory, we can conclude that the secure environment formed from a child’s early caregiver type relationships allow them to explore these different environments safely allowing for cognitive development during early childhood and beyond. Between the ages of approximately two to seven years, a child enters the preoperational stage, a time in which symbolism is used to express sensorimotor discoveries and the development of language and the ability to pretend occurs (Berk, 2008). During this stage the child’s thinking lacks the logic that is typical of the concrete operational and formal operational stages (Berk 2008). To assist my own development my mother ensured I attended pre-school from the age of four to supplement my cognitive, social and physical development. This environment was stimulating with elements of play incorporated into each
Anterograde Amnesia (AA) is commonly known as short term memory loss. It is the inability to form any new memories after a neurological or psychological trauma in the brain. “Current definitions of anterograde amnesia emphasize the presence of severe and permanent deficits for the recall of recent events (typically with poor recognition) that contrast with intact short-term memory, IQ, semantic memory, skill learning, simple classical conditioning, perceptual learning, and priming” (Aggleton, 2008, p. 1442). Also, according to Aggleton, AA causes the inability to recall autobiographical events (episodic memory). Research shows that damage to the diencephalon or frontal lobe can cause AA. Damage to the diencephalon impairs memory performance because it encodes new experiences for future recall and damage to the frontal lobe of the brain weaken memory performance because the it is involved in regulates access explicit memory (Mendev 2007). Duff, Wszalek, Tranel & Cohen (2008) stated...
As we look into the effects of trauma on infants, we first must consider to what extent infants have memory. Many people assume that trauma cannot affect children who are too young to remember what happened. Perhaps, they even think that these infants are lucky because they experienced trauma so young that they grow up as if nothing had ever happened. However, studies show that we may need to think beyond our intuition.
Not many children’s movies show children how the brain develops, stores memories and works in day to day life, but Inside Out does just that. Within this hour and a half movie the psychology topics of long term memory, short term memory, emotions, and development is all include. Although it is very clear Inside Out indulges on these psychological topics throughout the movie, memory and emotions take the spotlight. Developmental psychology may not be as obvious, but is still in several of the scenes in Inside Out.
Piaget believed that young children’s cognitive processes are intrinsically different from adults and that when they moved from a position of egocentrism to sociocentrism (during adolescence) that they had reached their potential in cognition.
Preoperational thought is the second stage in Piaget’s theory. In this stage a child ranging from 2 to 6 years of age learns how to talk and walk to understand their bodies. I grew up as an only child. I did not have an older sibling to take care of me so I was always at daycare. I had tons of friends in daycare. I made friends left a...
...tumps them and studies and research is still being conducted in order to gain more insight into this quizzical case. But in order to understand the correlation between age and eidetic memory, one can look at the causes as three different theories. The first theory is the Linguistic theory, the idea that as children mature, their language skills help them perceive information. The second theory is one dealing with functionalism. The idea is that over time, the child’s brain learns to retain only significant bits of information and discard unnecessary ones. And the last theory deals with association. As one matures, one learns to associate their different senses in order to process information. In all, each theory takes credence, because one provides a thoughtful and logical explanation as to why children rely less and less on visual imagery to build their memory.
Jean Piaget’s cognitive theory states that a child goes through many set stages in his or her cognitive development. It is through these stages that the child is able to develop into an adult. The first of these stages is called the sensorimotor period in which the child’s age ranges from 0-2 years old. During this sensorimotor period of a child’s development, the child’s main objective is to master the mechanics of his or her own body. Towards the end of this period, the child begins to recognize himself as a separate individual, and that people and objects around him or her have their own existence. The child, however, does not have a sense of object permanence meaning that when an object is taken away, the child no longer believes that that object actually exists. As the child nears the end of this period of development, he may seek an item that has been hidden in the location where he or she last saw it, but does not look elsewhere (Smith). During the preoperational period, which lasts from age 2-7, the child has come a long way in his or her cognitive development since his or her birth. In this period, the child has a very basic understanding of the inner workings of his or her mind and is ready to interact with their environment in a more symbolic way. A limitation during this period is known as egocentrism. The child has a hard time realizing that though there are many other people and things in their world, none of them are more important that the child himself. The child believes that his point of view is the only point of view of the world. This is caused by his inability to put himself in someone’s else’s shoes (Smith). The concrete operational period, spanning between the ages of 7 and 11, is marked by the onset of logic to the young mind. The child is able to mentally manipulate objects and events. In other words, he or she can imagine squashing a clay ball ...
There has been evidence to show that under certain circumstances, younger children are not as susceptible to false memories as other children or adults; this concept is known as developmental reversals. When someone is introduced to a stressful or traumatic event it can create a range of emotions starting from happy to fear to mad. Due to the severity of the event, it may create false memories because an individual does not want to remember what has happened whether or themselves or just by witnessing what someone else has gone through. The more severe the traumatic event, the more likely it is for a person to experience a false memory; the studies have proven
Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development demonstrates a child’s cognitive ability through a series of observational studies of simple tests. According to Piaget, a child’s mental structure, which is genetically inherited and evolved, is the basis for all other learning and knowledge. Piaget’s
“The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychology has been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children. He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget's ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.” (McLeod 2009). Piaget purposed that we move through stages of cognitive development. He noticed that children showed different characteristics throughout their childhood development. The four stages of development are The Sensorimotor stage, The Preoperational Stage, The Concrete operational stage and The Formal operational stage.
As children grow, they transition through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development and their type of
In terms of the cognitive development perspective, Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget, was extremely interested in how children acquire knowledge and come to understand their world and his theories form the basis of the cognitive approach (Joyce and Weil, 1996; Heo et al., 2011). Piaget asserts that “language is a product of intelligence, rather than intelligence being a product of language” (Piaget, 1929) and he explains children 's language acquisition by using four stages of cognitive development and his theories offer a crucial theoretical basis in terms of intellectual maturation (Heo et al., 2011). Piaget contends that children form schema, or cognitive structures, through which individuals