Abstract
This longitudinal study of nine children examined two issues concerning infantile amnesia: the time at which memories for events experienced before the age of 3–4 years disappear from consciousness and whether this timing of memory loss is related to the development of specific aspects of episodic and autobiographical memory. This study followed children from infancy to early childhood and examined the central role of three verbal–cognitive milestones related to autobiographical memory: the age at which children begin to report autobiographical memories using the past tense (Milestone 1); the age at which they begin to verbally acknowledge past events (Milestone 2); and the age at which they begin to spontaneously use memory-related verbs (Milestone 3). As expected, memories of events that occurred before 3–4 years of age were affected by infantile amnesia. Achievement of these milestones followed almost the same developmental progression: Milestone 1 (1 year; 10 months (1;10) to 3 years; 4 months (3;4)) was followed by Milestones 2 (3;1 to 4;0) and 3 (3;5 to 4;4). Milestone 2 was typically related to the onset of infantile amnesia, whereas Milestone 1 occurred during the period for which the children became amnesic as they aged. These data suggest that linguistic meta-cognitive awareness of personal memory is the key feature in infantile amnesia.
Highlights
The scarcity of autobiographical memories in humans from the period prior to the age of 3 to 4 years is called “infantile amnesia” [1]
The first concerns the timing of the inability to recall events experienced before 3–4 years of age in the context of individual development: When do originally retained memories for events experienced before 3–4 years of age begin to disappear from consciousness? The second question concerns the relationship with other abilities: Is this timing of memory loss related to the development of specific aspects of episodic and autobiographical memory? The present study focuses on the development of memory-related linguistic abilities as specific aspects of autobiographical memory
The present study aimed to investigate whether there is a relationship between infantile amnesia and certain memory-related linguistic milestones in autobiographical memory
Summary
The scarcity of autobiographical memories in humans from the period prior to the age of 3 to 4 years is called “infantile amnesia” [1]. This phenomenon has been extensively documented in both adults [2,3,4] and elementary school children [5,6,7]. It is clear that this type of amnesia cannot be attributed to encoding deficits given that healthy infants and 2–3-year-old children possess relatively good memories [8,9,10]. Mechanisms underlying infantile amnesia and related important issues are yet to be clarified; for example, why are the earliest experiences that both adults and children recall the ones that
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