Pillemer

In the chapter by Pillemer, I was most interested in the dual memory model. The idea that there are two parts to your memory, one which saves a picture of the event and another which saves the story seems very true to my experiences. When I remember an event, what first comes to my mind is what seems like a snapshot of the event. Right after that the stories of the event come flooding back. This theory also seems to describe many problems that I have experienced with my own memory and that have been touched on in many of the readings we have done. I have noticed in my own memory, that when remembering an event, I feel inclined to remember things a little differently than the probable reality because I factor into that memory information that I have since learned. Memories are perpetually chagned by experiences that have occured after them. This dual model seems to offer an explanation for how memories can seem so real to people even when they are actually a distorted reality. Whenever I have a visual image of an event in my head it seems like a valid memory, so then whatever story comes with it automatically seems credible. In that way, it seems that memories could get distorted all the time and people would not know because their visual image is credible. I wonder if other people have similar experiences with their visual and verbal memories.

October 31 Post

What interested me the most in the Pillemer reading were the differences between linguistic and non-linguistic memory. In a way it’s hard for me to separate the two, however I can see how they distinction is important when analyzing the memory of young children. Thinking about one of my earliest memories, and how what I remember the most was the overwhelming feeling of guilt, so much that I cried in pre-school. So remembering the emotion is to use my linguistic memory. However, now that I’m older, I am able to put the memory of that event, and specifically, that feeling in words. I can verbalize the feeling. So my question is, wouldn’t this memory now fall under the non-linguistic category? And when we do begin to develop a sense of ourselves, to form words and put memory into stories to relate to others, do all of our memories become non-linguistic? Even the idea that our parents place memories on us, or that their recollection becomes our memories would place that memory in the non-linguistic category as well?

October 31--Maternal Directing

Like Geoffrey, I found the concept of “maternal directing” of memories to be very interesting, particularly the idea that it has proven to be much more effective to fill in the gaps of what infants and children don’t remember rather than asking them questions in an attempt to probe their memory. This made me wonder what the infants and children are really remembering, the actually experience of whatever it is they are trying to remember or what their mother has told them about it. In this context, I assumed that the authors were talking about remembering events consciously and being able to recall them verbally, as opposed to unconscious influences, and, if this is in fact the case, it seems much more likely that children would recall their mother’s discussion of the incident rather than the incident itself. I do understand, though, that asking questions, especially the same one over and over again, will likely not stimulate a child to remember an event, I wonder if filling in the gaps is actually increasing the memory.

infant amnesia vs. adult recall

I found this weeks readings to be surprisingly interesting in regards to two major themes. The first of these these is that of "maternal reminiscing" [Nelson] or "maternal directing" [Harley]. The idea of the style by which mothers describe or talk about the past with their infants as being important to the infants later ability to remember things verbally, or to retell them in detail is amazing to me. Not only would i never have guessed that his was the case, but i was very skeptical of it as i read it. After going through all of the readings, it would seem that there really is a connection, and that the difference which is obviously mother to mother, can also be seen culture to culture. The example of cultures which promote oral history and the adults ability to remember their early childhood better is very intriguing. I also found it interesting that the big difference between style is presented as either filling in the gaps of the story the infant does not produce vs. asking the child baited questions in the hopes that they will remember. To me, the logical choice would be to do both, and i found it really surprising that filling in the gaps seemed to be so much more effective than asking the child more questions or giving them small cues in the hopes they would remember. Similarly, i found it rather strange that Pillemer claimed that mothers style of narrative taught children what was appropriate to remember and what is not. This did not seem to come up significantly in the other readings, but is something that struck me as i read it and i would like it if we could bring it up in class.
The second big thing that was interesting was the correlation between self recognition and autobiographical memory. While it seems obvious that being able to recognize yourself would impact your ability to remember things about yourself and what happened to you, it is less obvious that infants could have "verbal" or "autobiographical" memory before they were able to recognize themselves in the mirror [Bauer and Harley]. Not only is that counter intuitive, but it also means that the standard memory idea of implicit and explicit memory is in place and functioning form a very young age, and not something that develops at 3-5 years of age as the other readings were suggesting. It is important to realize that the explicit memory ability is likely developing over this time period as the frontal lobe is developing, but it not "turned off", it is more likely unreliable or incapable of handling significant detail. This idea actually goes really well in hand with one of my earliest memories in which i remember not being able to talk.
In terms of why adults do not remember these things very well, i found that while the different theories were compelling, they all seem to have a faulty assumption that was pointed out by one of the other arguments we read.

Infantile Amnesia

The main consensus reached by the authors of the articles we read this week was that infants and young children do have the ability to recall some incidents but that there are several factors that prevent them from being remembered in adulthood. Numerous studies have proved than very young infants can recognize their mother’s voice. The articles described many studies that had done variations on an experiment where the researcher performed a strange action with a prop, then gave the prop to the child to see if they would copy the action. Even after a time delay, infants could produce the correct action. As the age of the child increased, the time between initially observing the action and being able to correctly recall it increased. While these memories do not remain into adulthood, they can be remembered for long enough, proving that infants do have a functioning memory system.

The articles we read also discussed the differences between linguistic and non-linguistic memory. Pillemer describes these two systems as imagistic and narrative. Imagistic memories are made up of sounds, images, and emotions and while this system can be used throughout the life span, it is especially useful for young children who do not yet have adequate language abilities. The narrative system employs words, generally in the form of a story. Imagistic memories are experienced while narrative memories can be related in a coherent form to others.

These studies also discuss the importance of autobiographical memories. These can only be formed after a person has formed a sense of self, meaning that they understand who they are in relation to everything around them. The ability to report autobiographical memory is usually influenced by how parents encourage their children to talk about past experiences. Some parents ask leading questions allow their child time to elaborate while others simply ask the same question over and over again and then move on to another topic. It would be interesting to look at how much of an effect these parental styles have over time. Do these influences persist into adulthood and affect the way people interact with their own children?

Pillemer, to my delight, has finally introduced the topic of repression, arguing against it as a reason why children cannot remember their early years. Repression is one of Freud’s favorite explanations; he believes that early memories are forgotten because adults don’t want to remember the sexual nature of the earliest memories. Pillemer disagrees with this and argues that mental development has the most affect on when memories can be recalled. Early memories are formed in a way that is not accessible from the adult brain.

I was also intrigued by the last section from Pillemer’s chapter, Repression as a Failure of Translation. Here, he suggests that forgotten memories of trauma are not repressed; they are simply encoded in a way that the adult does not know how to interpret. Children often do not have a complete understanding of trauma and therefore, have no solid way of storing it to be remembered later. However, if this is true, then how exactly can these memories be recovered? If they had better linguistic skills or a more complete sense of self at the time of the trauma, is it more likely to be recovered/remembered later on?

Too much thinking. Again.

Between what I could not help but keep thinking was extraneous, redundant, and unnecessary evidence presented in “The Emergence of Autobiographical Memory : A Social Cultural Developmental Theory” by Kavush and Nelson, I kept finding points that opened up a whole new view of the article for me – one that I found, if slightly off-topic and idealistic, nonetheless extremely important. What I saw throughout their description of the development of the entity of autobiographical memory was a description that could almost simultaneously describe the development of personality. At the risk of possibly sounding slightly Freudian (though that may not be all bad?), I’ll point out some specifics that I found especially indicative of this. The first point in the reading at which this idea began forming in my mind was their discussion of childrens’ constructions of memories and concepts based on the “scaffolding” of these events by the adults (mainly mothers) around them. With memory in all its types being, more or less, the absolute most important component of the life of any human being, any event which is encoded in the mind of someone at the time when the memory is still in stages of the development that are not yet autonoetic but simply essential to functioning (as in, of course, a child) is going to hold extreme significance. As something that I can actually recall and relate to personally, the reinforcement of adults to children of the validity and correctness of the child’s recounting of an episode is just as important to the memory process as any other factor, and even more important to the later development of individual personality characteristics. As a theory: a child who does have their accounts and memories reinforced by their parents and other adults adapt a sense of self-confidence, even if it is not articulated as such at the time, and in accordance with the theory of autobiographical memory being a memory for important and life-defining events, this self confidence then has more potential at that time, in that instance, than it would at perhaps in a later point in the child’s development, to become salient in his/her personalities. Of course, I also do not mean this to sound like an over-simplification, either; the personality aspect of self-confidence was my main focus in the course of this reading because, in the way that I read this, it was alluded to, often, whether the authors intended for this or not. They even mentioned at one point that “’achievement of a cognitive self,’…is also characterized by a new self-consciousness, evidenced in inhibition, shyness, and embarrassment.” Also, the development of the component of autobiographical memory that is the ability of a child to see his or her own perspective in relation to those of others can also, again, by my theory, be a definite precursor for the natural characteristic tendency of all humans – to compare his or herself to others. And this idea brings me to the actual questions I wish to address based on all of these crazy observations – what makes some children eventually come to manifest these tendencies, and coinciding insecurities, more so than others? Is it whether or not the mother was elaborative or non-elaborative in the course of the child’s development, forcing the child not only have a somewhat lesser developed (at least at the time) memory in the case of the latter but also be at a loss for comparability by which to validate the things he or she remembers? (And, as another tangent, will this influence the level of creativity possessed by a child eventually? Will the child be more prone to self-doubt and subsequent confabulation and alternate forms of expression if their memories and ideas are not readily, or ever, confirmed by adults [assuming that if they were, they would develop more stringent ideas and concepts of the world, or at least be more apt to doing so]?) If the individual outcomes of autobiographical memory development truly is so dependent on social contexts, then why do children from the same families and upbringings so often turn out so differently, in many respects at that? Does it have to do with intelligence? And if so, in the correlation of memory and intelligence, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Referring to the experimental task of toddlers needing a key to open a box, “Children who did not verbally recall this causal connection even when probed also did not evidence behavioral reenactment of the causal connection, being surprised when they could not open the box at the end of the event sequence.” At that age, is there any other way to measure intelligence than by memory? My questions are admittedly vague and scattered, but all this seeming circumlocution is, hopefully, pointing to my idea that there is much more that can be learned – and, more importantly, predicted – from the development of autobiographical memory than we may realize. Personality may be able to be evaluated even in the earliest stages of life. I may seem to be just further blurring already vague, scattered, and still developing realms of thought, but that seems to me to be utterly necessary. “Whereas memory for specific episodes is important for anticipating and predicting the environment autobiographical memory, as defined here, is about defining self in time and in relation to others.” That statement seems far too black-and-white to me. Are not all episodes remembered for a reason, an emotional reason, no matter how implicit?

Another observation I had, which is, I promise, less far-reaching and much less long-winded, is the author’s treatment of the retrieval of the very first memories of life. Within the text itself, there seems to be a very significant contradiction. It is empirically stated in the analysis of one of the authors’ experiments that children’s recounts of certain events, when they are prompted by interviewers to give them at several different intervals spread over months and even years, will consistently still utilize only the vocabulary that the children had at the time of the initial recount, even though their vocabulary has clearly developed immensely since that time. So with this in mind, how much faith can we put in the first memories at ALL? There was little or no language in the mental construct of all persons at the time that this first “memory” was “made”, so how can any later, especially adulthood representation or conveyance of this “memory” even qualify as a memory at all? It is at best misrepresented or exaggerated, and at worst completely confabulated. In the context of the role of language in autobiographical memory, I cannot see any way around this. The authors actually do seem to almost reach this conclusion, by stating that “the first recalled memory does not imply a now continuous autobiographical memory”, but do not explain why. I was only satisfied when I went on to read Howe and Courage, and found that my feelings on this topic were valid: they make clear that, if in either case that they propose for the reason behind infantile amnesia, the first memories are either irretrievable (if memory is in fact permanent) because the context of the initial encoding is too vastly different from the context of the attempt at retrieval, or the mental state of the person at the time did not support the memory being significantly encoded (if memory is not permanent) because, due to the massive and rapid attempts of the minds of infants and young children to instinctively take in every bit of information they can, there was simply not enough time and enough cognitive ability available. Yes, Howe and Courage. Yes.
And yet, the focus of their article was still not entirely what I was hyped up for. Infantile amnesia is a fascinating phenomenon, but when studying it simply in and of itself, and paying equal or less attention to what is actually remembered throughout these years, where are we getting? Not far. I’m open to and ready for much questioning and arguing (and probably general confusion) relating to all these observations, but in hopes of at least giving us all a place to start, let me sum up the above garrulous rambling into a single sentence: As long as both concepts are still present in every analysis, let’s focus less on what is forgotten and more on what is remembered.

Development and Socialization, or How I learned to Stop Forgetting and Conceive of the Self

Pillemer and I have made up. I'm totally into his stuff this week.
I think the his writing on the narrative memory system and linguistic development are incredibly important in terms of the development of the self and autobiographical memory. However, Pillemer's dualistic view seems a little too simple. While we are dividing and itemizing memory systems, I am more apt to side with Roediger and say that there are probably more like 20 to 25 different interactive memory systems working together at any given time. I at least wish Pillemer had accounted for other types of sensory memory (auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory) more thoroughly. Perhaps his idea of imagistic traces covers all sensory perception. Drawing the lines between the systems quickly becomes sticky, but nonetheless his distinction between encoding experiences prelinguistically and after linguistic/narrative skills have been acquired is very significant. In the context of verbal recall (which, as Bauer points out, is what most of this research is preoccupied with), linguistic mastery during both encoding and recall seems to be of the utmost importance. Early childhood memories are not filtered through a linguistic narrative lens and are “discordant with adults' purposeful recollective efforts.” Perhaps this is the same reason we often have a difficult time verbally recalling dreams. As most dreams do not unfold in a logical narrative manner, the dreamer, similar to the prelinguistic child, has a hard time recalling the jumbled, fluidly encoded images. Charlotte Doyle of SLC's psychology department places a great deal of importance on linguistically representing one's thoughts, justifying her requirement that all students post on the blog prior to every class by saying, “You haven't thought it until you've put it into words.” Nelson and Fivush have a lot to say about language's importance in development of the concept of self and memory. For instance, language gives the idea of the abstract construct of time and helps to organize memories into the narrative forms of autobiographic memory. More importantly perhaps, it allows children to interact with other people, strengthening their sense of self and their socially constructed notions of what and how one should remember.
This social/cultural theory is equally as important and inextricably linked to the Pillemer's narrative model. Harley and Reese say “The primary purpose of autobiographical memory is to share personal memories with others,” so of course we are talking about something that is largely social. At first, I was a little put off by how much sense this deterministic social/cultural model made. If I am simply a product of my social upbringing, and the way I represent all my memories and my concept of self are socially determined before I even have a concept of self, what hope do I have of achieving any sort of originality in my predetermined life? But I found the fact that children's unique styles of interaction with parents during memory talk influences how parents go about this talk to be existentially empowering. Then I felt unsettled again when, after reading that parents' memory talk styles have an definite impact on children's memories and personalities, I started to think about the effect of our teach-for-the-test educational system.
It is fairly obvious that events experienced prior to attaining a concrete sense of self would not be momentous. If something is not happening to what you perceive as you, you will be less likely to remember it—as Pillemer beats to death in the section of his second chapter that I didn't like. Without a concept of self, one is no better off than a third-party recipient of information (such as the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima) or than the amnesiacs we've talked about being told of their own past as if it were secondhand knowledge. If one does not believe something to be important to their lives, it is not necessary to be encoded in long term memory. This sort of evolutionary view (where one remembers that which is critical to his survival, forgetting that which is not—as mentioned in the section of Pillemer's second chapter that I did like) carries over beyond childhood amnesia to, I think, any period or part of your life that you don't recall very well. If the events of this period are not vital to your current goals or emotional state, why would you remember them? In this light (and after reading the accounts of decent to impressive infantile memory), I side with Howe and Courage in that infantile amnesia is largely a chimera, a popular figment perpetuated by the relatively recent spike in childhood amnesia research.
One last note: What do you guys think about Howe and Courage's section about infants' memory traces being reactivated so much that instead of crystalizing the trace as a permanent memory, the repeated remembering actually (as I've posted before) exponentially perverts the memory to the point of furthering infantile amnesia?