Childhood Memory

Question 1

Autobiographical memory (AM) across the lifespan

Answer 1

Personal memories

Asked to generate AMs in response to word cues e.g. boat, flower then date the memories that are retrieved to these cues e.g. how old were you when this event occurred (experimenter plots the number of memories recalled from each age)

Question 2

Mental Time Travel (Tulving, 1999)

Answer 2

Allows the individual to re-experience previous experiences and project similar experiences in the future

Question 3

Define the Reminiscence Bump

Answer 3

Just because you can remember it, doesn’t mean the memory is accurate because you might not remember the actual event. You might just be remembering stories or memories of that memory

Most of the events we recall occurred when we were 15-30 years old – Rubin et al, 1986, 1998

Phenomenon is observed across cultures – Conway et al, 2005

Perhaps linked into our feelings of NOSTALGIA for our ‘generation’ (we identify with our teens/early twenties – Sehulster, 1996)

Question 4

Define Recency Effect

Answer 4

You can best remember events from recent years

Question 5

Wheeler, Stuss and Tulving (1997)

Answer 5

Children aged 25-32 months can recall some specific events that occurred 12 months ago BUT it is just recall of factual information Therefore, these are not autobiographical memories but semantic memories

They claim that we cannot reflect upon ourselves and our past experiences until we are around 2-3 years old because that is when our self-concept/self-awareness develops

Our self-concept starts to emerge around 18-24 months. It is sufficiently developed (for rudimentary AM) at around 3 years

Question 6

Physical Self

Answer 6

From 3 months we begin to learn to discriminate our facial features from other infants. By around 18 months we respond to a ‘smudge’ on our nose (seen in a mirror) by touching it and we’re often embarrassed by our image (shy smile). By 22-24 months we say our name when we see our mirror image

Question 7

Psychological Self

Answer 7

4-5 year olds (but not 3 year olds) show delayed recognition of their past self (e.g. Povinelli and Simon, 198; Howe, 2003)

Question 8

Povinelli and Simon (1998) study on 3,4, and 5 year olds

Answer 8

Visit 1 – children were videoed playing a game while a ‘sticker’ was covertly placed on their head and then removed after the game
Visit 2 – 1 week later. Same children videoed playing a different game and a ‘sticker’ is again placed in their head

Half of children in each group then watched the video from visit 1 while other half watched the video from the recent session (visit 2). Fewer than half of 3 year olds in both the immediate (session 2) and delayed (session 1) conditions reached for the sticker

The majority of 4-5 year olds reached for the sticker when watching the video of the current session (2) but few reached for it when watching the previous week’s video (1). 4-5 year olds have developed a sense of self that extends over time – mental time travel – psychological self

Question 9

Phonological Loop

Answer 9

A language learning device to provide temporary storage of unfamiliar phonological forms while permanent memory representations are constructed (Gathercole and Baddeley, 1993)

Vocab acquisition and the phonological loop in children:
10% of children already have a digit span of 4
36% do not reach this capacity for another 2 years (Gathercole and Adams, 1993)

Differences in STM capacity correlate with individual variations in vocabulary knowledge (review by Baddeley, Gathercole and Papagno 1998)

Question 10

Correlation between Span and Vocab

Answer 10

1. STM is a vocab learning device
2. Good LTM vocab skills help in STM tasks
3. Both vocab and span are reliant upon a 3rd factor (speed of processing?) which influences both