L7 Memory development

• Childhood amnesia: 

  • There is a qualitative difference in memories in young children.
  • There are studies showing infants have long-term memory however these may be linked to procedural or implicit knowledge – the infant does not need to consciously reflect on their experiences
• The deferred imitation paradigm is another example of LTM and is where the infant imitates an event demonstrated some time earlier.
• • Neural explanation: different types of memory are dependent on different neural circuits, which mature at different speeds. This would explain why implicit and procedural knowledge (less dependent on frontal cortical structures) appear much earlier than autobiographical, explicit and source memory.
• • Problems with children’s limited memory: there may be an issue of suggestibility and the effects of misinformation. E.g. the sexual abuse cases based on the testimony of hundreds of children was dropped after six years when they were found to have been coerced and subject to considerable interviewer suggestion and bias.
  • False memories induced by association, however, increase between childhood and adulthood, which means childhood memory may be better in some ways.
• Implicit and explicit memory

  • The fact that people can be changed by past experiences without having any awareness of those experiences suggests that there must be at least two different kinds of memory. E.g. Clive Wearing knew the layout of his new house.
• • Neonates (under a month old) shown checkerboards, they are shown identical checkerboards 4 times then a new one. They seem more interested in the new one suggesting they remember the other ones.
• • Hill et al: baby acquires a skill of moving a mobile with their foot with a ribbon tied to them. They remember the action and kick more next time they are with the mobile up until 3 weeks showing they retain the memory.
  • However, is this ‘remembering’ or is it a conditioned response?
• • Klein & Meltzoff – used 1 year olds and showed them how to activate objects e.g. place forehead on the box to activate light. After a week they tested if they could remember. The group shown how to activate the objects were much more likely to activate it than a control group.
• • Tustin & Hayne: mean earliest memory is 3.48.
  • Young children can remember what happened to them before 3, so is it a problem with rapid forgetting, or instead later access?
  • Bauer: evidence that young children forget events more quickly.
• Children’s eyewitness testimony

  • Misinformation paradigm: they are told leading questions with incorrect information. Younger children accepted the misinformation more often than older children. Explanations: memory factors, social factors, source discrimination.
  • Source discrimination: being consciously aware of how you found out information.