Autobiographical memory and Children

My 5-year-old son makes comments on when he was younger and behaved similar to my eight-month-old. He looks at me will sincerity and pride, and says “sissy still wears diapers, but I don’t because I can go potty by myself!” He often emphasizes how he remembers key features of when he was a baby, like when he made his first laugh. Its adorable because he clearly doesn’t remember these events, but he remembers me telling him. In fact, all of our memory before 3-years-old is implicit memory (Wede, 2020).

For the first three years of life our brains are developing rapidly. We do not form the capacity for recording explicit memory for quite some time, meanwhile we absorb tons of information unconsciously (Wede, 2020). This is due to our prefrontal cortex coming online. Up until this point, we encoded things drastically different and therefore cannot actually recall memory from this time period. With this knowledge I chuckle at my sons drop dead serious recollections of how he used to wear diapers.

He seems to remember things that he has heard second hand after 3.5 years old. His brain is cued not by memory but how he has stored and constructed a memory based off of my account of having expressed it. Since memory is an active process, he could very well have imagined himself behaving according to my explanation and thus constructed a memory of himself in diapers. This is called a false memory (Wede, 2020).

At some point since his prefrontal cortex has been up and running, he noticed the emotions of awe as I recounted my memory of something cute that he’s done. Emotions play an important role in autobiographical memory. This is because emotions activate the amygdala and cause us to form flashbulb memories (Wede, 2020). I am wondering if the same goes for false memory. Could my son be so powerfully moved by my emotions recounting a memory that he constructs his own narrative for the event?

References

Wede, Josh. (2020). Course Modules: L09 Everyday Memory and Memory Errors. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2130474/modules

4 thoughts on “Autobiographical memory and Children

  1. Emma Blanton

    The connection that you made between your five year old and the memories he has created based on stories that you have told reminds me a lot of a memory that I know must have been created based on someone in my life telling the story. I remember my first time in a baby swing as a child, the exact house, and that my brothers were playing in a sandbox at the time of me being in the swing. When I told my father and uncle that story, they both looked at me in complete shock and asked me how I could possibly remember something from when I was only a young toddler. I do not remember who told me the story or even being told the story, but I have a memory painted so clearly in my imagination that it is as if I actually do remember it from the experience. Thank you for sharing this and connecting the pieces for me, as I didn’t realize that this could be a part of the false memory experience as well!

  2. Rebecca Helsel

    Hello, I found your post interesting because it reminded me of my now 6 year old niece. Autobiographical memories contain activity, location, temporal, and participant information (Lancaster & Barsalou, 1997). From about the ages of 3 to 6 , children show vague memory of events that may have happened. Autobiographical memory refers to our memory for specific episodes . I have noticed my niece only really remembers having gastroschisis as a baby because of the information from family, and because of the different stories my niece swears she remembers being born with her intestines being on the outside of her body, which is crazy how the mind works at such an early age.

    I have realized that after reading your post and reading this chapter for class, that through conversations, children learn the narrative forms which eventually provide a structure for the memories they are having. Like my sister, she elaborates on the details and the fact my niece had gastroschisis and sometimes over dramatic stories about the details and my niece processes that information and then says what she remembers or what she recalls. It’s crazy how the brain can process information at such a young age. Really, autobiographical memories may consist more of general information than specific details of a particular event or time.

    Lancaster, J. S., & Barsalou, L. W. (1997). Multiple organisations of events in memory – barsalou lab. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from http://barsaloulab.org/Online_Articles/1997-Lancaster_Barsalou-Memory-event_organization.pdf.

  3. afi5146

    The connection you made was so similar too mine! I feel like this experience is a right of passage when you’re growing up. As we have learned we don’t start forming explicit memories until around two – three years old. With that being known, there is a possibility we could remember some things but not with the same clarity as when we are able to form implicit memories. My mom used to tell me about what she was doing on the day of 9/11. Evidently, I was in a crib downstairs while the news was on the television. She was making popcorn in the kitchen and had the screen door open, and a bear tried coming through the back door. I remember this so well because of how many times she told me this story. For the longest time I could have sworn I remembered seeing all of this happen but, in all reality, that is impossible. The way memory works is so interesting!

  4. Rachael Holder

    This was such an interesting read! I also have false memories from when I was a baby that were constructed by my family members. I also wrote about false memories in my blog post because they are so interesting because they can occur at any age! This is why the justice system should try to use less eye witness testimonies when prosecuting or defending a case. It is so easy for use to mix up memories or misremember something completely.

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