Childhood amnesia, which is commonly known as infantile amnesia, is the scarcity or lack of autobiographical recollections among adults regarding incidents that took place in their early life, especially events that occurred before they turned 4 years old. Generally, most adults have no recollections of events that took place in their early life before they turned 3 years. Childhood amnesia is usually assessed through asking adults to remember their earliest memory, especially specific target incidents that happened during early life. As a result, the emergence of autobiographical memory is always regarded as the end of childhood amnesia. Childhood amnesia is an important topic in the field of psychology with regards to understanding an individual's life development. The topic is also vital in the field of psychology because it provides significant insights that help in understanding memory.
Background Information
Childhood amnesia or infantile amnesia is basically described as the scarcity or lack of autobiographical recollections among adults for incidents that took place during early life, especially before age 4 (Peterson, Grant & Boland, 2005, p.622). An individual or adult can also be considered to have childhood amnesia if he/she is seemingly unable to remember significant events in his/her life that happened before age 10 as might be expected during this period. While the brain structures like the limbic system are involved in retaining memory during the first 2 years, they are yet to be completely developed. Based on research findings, children have the ability to recollect events from before age 4 though the memories decline as they become older.
Childhood amnesia is a concept that was first introduced in 1893 by psychologist Caroline Miles in her study or evaluation individual psychology. The concept was later developed by Henri and Henri who examined individual psychology and suggested that earliest recollection of memory between 2 and 4 years. One of the major psychologists who played a crucial role in the development of the concept of childhood amnesia is Sigmund Freud. Freud provided what is arguably the most renowned and controversial definition and explanation of this concept in 1910. Through the use of the psychoanalytic theory, Freud argued that recollection of events in early life is seemingly difficult because these incidents are subdued given their unsuitable sexual nature. However, he discovered that most of his patients had difficulties remembering their earliest memories, especially events that took place before 6-8 years.
Even though scientists have known childhood amnesia for over a century, they started to examine when childhood memories begin to fade in the recent decades. These quests also involved examining which childhood memories are likely to fade and how adults develop a full autobiography without express memories of early life (Hamilton, 2014). Scientists have traditionally assumed that childhood amnesia took place because the brains of young children could not create lasting memories of certain incidents. However, this belief was tested in the 1980s by Bauer and other researchers, which involved examining the memories of children aged 9 months and using objects and gestures rather than words. The tests revealed that children as young as 2 years had very strong memories for certain past events. These findings resulted in concerns on why adults have difficulty recollecting this period of their lives.
The concerns resulted in additional studies, which demonstrated that people tend to lose access to their earliest memories during certain periods in their childhood. One of the studies showed that 7-year-old children could still recollect over 60% of events that took place in the early stages of their lives. However, at age 8 or 9, these children could only remember less than 40% of their earliest memories. The researchers concluded that this was the beginning of childhood amnesia or infantile amnesia.
Generally, children at the age of 2 have the ability to recall some of their earliest memories in life since they are able to answer questions recent incidents despite being in need of careful promoting to retrieve memories. When these children grow to age 6 or 8, they demonstrate tremendous ability to recall and describe significant incidents in their lives. However, in most cases many children have well-established autobiographical memories similar to the extent of normal forgetting evident in adults. Despite having these well-established autobiographical memories, children tend to be unable to remember memories of life that took place in their early life.
While the past few years have been characterized by increased research to understand childhood amnesia or infantile amnesia, the reason for the occurrence of the condition remains a mystery (Vitelli, 2014). Moreover, in the past century, there have been several studies to examine the earliest age in which adults can remember a life event, which have been significantly...
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