The Infantile Amnesia Phenomenon and the Beginning of Autobiographical Memories

The first years of life are characterized by an absence or paucity of memories, a condition known as infantile amnesia (IA). This study examines the distribution of the early memory recall of young adults, considering the distinction between the first (0–3) and the second (4–6) epoch of IA. We used five categories to classify memories: Perceptual-Visual Fragment, General Semantic Memory, Episodic Fragment, Repeated Episode, Single Episode. Fifty-five students (20 males; mean age = 20.85) were asked to remember their earliest events. We were also interested in understanding the presence of content features. Remembering at first epoch were low; in the second epoch, the frequency of memory increased. Results showed as the presence and number of different types of memory decrease the likelihood of memory being structured as episodic. The participants reported more elements of perceptual-visual fragments, episodic fragments, semantic memories, or repeated events when a well-organized episodic memory does not emerge. These results suggest that the episodic system assumes the role of organizer of the experience and becomes the most relevant form of memory with respect a less structured form of partial remembering. Significant differences were observed in the content features of the different memory types. The offset of IA has a complex articulation, and the complete episodic memories are the last step in the different development stages.

[1]  S. Umanath,et al.  Rethinking the distinction between episodic and semantic memory: Insights from the past, present, and future , 2022, Memory & Cognition.

[2]  E. Marsh,et al.  A comparison of memories of fiction and autobiographical memories. , 2021, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[3]  M. Rugg,et al.  An historical perspective on Endel Tulving's episodic-semantic distinction , 2020, Neuropsychologia.

[4]  E. Kensinger,et al.  Retrieval of Emotional Events from Memory. , 2020, Annual review of psychology.

[5]  M. Conway,et al.  Cultural self-goals influence how much is remembered from early childhood events. , 2019, Journal of personality.

[6]  The organization and structure of autobiographical memory , 2019 .

[7]  S. Gülgöz,et al.  Consistency of adults’ earliest memories across two years , 2019, Memory.

[8]  P. Bauer,et al.  Predictors of age-related and individual variability in autobiographical memory in childhood , 2019, Memory.

[9]  H. Hayne,et al.  Recollection improves with age: children’s and adults’ accounts of their childhood experiences , 2019, Memory.

[10]  Margaret L. Schlichting,et al.  The ontogeny of memory persistence and specificity , 2018, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

[11]  H. Hayne,et al.  “What” and “where” was when? Memory for the temporal order of episodic events in children , 2017, Developmental psychobiology.

[12]  C. Alberini,et al.  Infantile Amnesia: A Critical Period of Learning to Learn and Remember , 2017, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[13]  P. Surcinelli,et al.  Self-Defining and Early Childhood Memories: Subjective Intensity Rating of Memory-Related Emotions , 2016 .

[14]  H. Hayne,et al.  Early memories come in small packages: episodic memory in young children and adults. , 2016, Developmental psychobiology.

[15]  J. Kim,et al.  Ontogeny of memory: An update on 40 years of work on infantile amnesia , 2016, Behavioural Brain Research.

[16]  Qi Wang,et al.  The Fate of Childhood Memories: Children Postdated Their Earliest Memories as They Grew Older , 2016, Front. Psychol..

[17]  G. Winocur,et al.  Episodic Memory and Beyond: The Hippocampus and Neocortex in Transformation. , 2016, Annual review of psychology.

[18]  C. Nelson,et al.  20 years after “The ontogeny of human memory: A cognitive neuroscience perspective,” where are we? , 2015 .

[19]  P. Bauer.  A complementary processes account of the development of childhood amnesia and a personal past. , 2015, Psychological review.

[20]  Catriona M. Morrison,et al.  Adult Recollections of Childhood Memories: What Details can be Recalled? , 2014, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[21]  P. Bauer,et al.  Childhood amnesia in the making: different distributions of autobiographical memories in children and adults. , 2014, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[22]  Qi Wang,et al.  Your earliest memory may be earlier than you think: prospective studies of children's dating of earliest childhood memories. , 2014, Developmental psychology.

[23]  R. Richardson,et al.  Infantile amnesia: forgotten but not gone , 2014, Learning & memory.

[24]  G. Morris,et al.  Predicting which childhood memories persist: contributions of memory characteristics. , 2014, Developmental psychology.

[25]  P. Bauer,et al.  Memory for One‐Time Experiences in the Second Year of Life: Implications for the Status of Episodic Memory , 2013 .

[26]  D. Addis,et al.  Autobiographical memory and sense of self. , 2013, Psychological bulletin.

[27]  D. Berntsen,et al.  Adults' earliest memories as a function of age, gender, and education in a large stratified sample. , 2013, Psychology and aging.

[28]  Louis Renoult,et al.  Personal semantics: at the crossroads of semantic and episodic memory , 2012, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[29]  B. Levine,et al.  Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Memory and Everyday Memory during Late Childhood and Early Adolescence , 2012, Front. Psychology.

[30]  E. Reese,et al.  “The people I grew up with”: The role of sociodemographic factors in early memories in an Italian sample , 2012, Memory.

[31]  E. Salmon,et al.  The neural basis of semantic and episodic forms of self-knowledge: insights from functional neuroimaging. , 2012, Advances in experimental medicine and biology.

[32]  Robyn Fivush,et al.  The making of autobiographical memory: intersections of culture, narratives and identity. , 2011, International journal of psychology : Journal international de psychologie.

[33]  J. Hudson,et al.  The self in autobiographical memory: Effects of self-salience on narrative content and structure , 2011, Memory.

[34]  H. Hayne,et al.  Episodic memory in 3- and 4-year-old children. , 2011, Developmental psychobiology.

[35]  H. Hayne,et al.  Childhood amnesia. , 2011, Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive science.

[36]  C. Peterson,et al.  Parent-child relationship quality and infantile amnesia in adults. , 2010, British journal of psychology.

[37]  H. Hayne,et al.  Childhood amnesia: Empirical evidence for a two-stage phenomenon , 2010, Memory.

[38]  E. Reese,et al.  Origins of adolescents’ autobiographical memories , 2010 .

[39]  M. Conway,et al.  First words and first memories , 2010, Cognition.

[40]  Alisha C. Holland,et al.  Emotion and autobiographical memory. , 2010, Physics of life reviews.

[41]  M. Conway.  Episodic memories , 2009, Neuropsychologia.

[42]  Pascale Piolino,et al.  Episodic autobiographical memories over the course of time: Cognitive, neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings , 2009, Neuropsychologia.

[43]  E. Robinson,et al.  What children know about the source of their knowledge without reporting it as the source , 2009 .

[44]  D. Hassabis,et al.  Deconstructing episodic memory with construction , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[45]  J. A. Robinson,et al.  Memory fragments as components of autobiographical knowledge , 2007 .

[46]  N. Newcombe,et al.  Development of episodic and autobiographical memory: a cognitive neuroscience perspective. , 2007, Advances in child development and behavior.

[47]  G. Winocur,et al.  The cognitive neuroscience of remote episodic, semantic and spatial memory , 2006, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[48]  Martin A. Conway,et al.  Memory and the self , 2005 .

[49]  J. A. Robinson,et al.  Fragment memories mark the end of childhood amnesia , 2005, Memory & cognition.

[50]  H. Terrace,et al.  The Missing Link in Cognition: Origins of Self-Reflective Consciousness , 2005 .

[51]  Robyn Fivush,et al.  Memories of positive and negative emotional events , 2005 .

[52]  K. Nelson,et al.  The emergence of autobiographical memory: a social cultural developmental theory. , 2004, Psychological review.

[53]  David C. Rubin,et al.  The Neuropsychology of Autobiographical Memory , 2003, Cortex.

[54]  M. L. Howe,et al.  When Autobiographical Memory Begins. , 2003 .

[55]  I. Whishaw,et al.  On the origins of autobiographical memory , 2003, Behavioural Brain Research.

[56]  E. Tulving.  Episodic memory: from mind to brain. , 2002, Annual review of psychology.

[57]  M. Conway.  Sensory-perceptual episodic memory and its context: autobiographical memory. , 2001, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[58]  Chris Moore,et al.  The Self in Time: Developmental Perspectives , 2001 .

[59]  D C Rubin,et al.  The distribution of early childhood memories , 2000, Memory.

[60]  P. Bauer,et al.  Parameters of remembering and forgetting in the transition from infancy to early childhood. , 2000, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[61]  M. Conway,et al.  The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. , 2000, Psychological review.

[62]  M. J. Farrar,et al.  Remembering specific episodes of a scripted event. , 1999, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[63]  Robyn Fivush,et al.  The stories we tell: how language shapes autobiography , 1998 .

[64]  Robyn Fivush,et al.  Children remember childhood: implications for childhood amnesia , 1998 .

[65]  D C Rubin,et al.  The distribution of autobiographical memories across the lifespan , 1997, Memory & cognition.

[66]  E. Tulving,et al.  Toward a theory of episodic memory: the frontal lobes and autonoetic consciousness. , 1997, Psychological bulletin.

[67]  M. K. Welch-Ross.  An Integrative Model of the Development of Autobiographical Memory , 1995 .

[68]  M. Conway,et al.  Pictures, images, and recollective experience. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[69]  David B. Pillemer,et al.  Very long-term memories of a salient preschool event , 1994 .

[70]  Sophie Papst,et al.  Memory Systems 1994 , 1994 .

[71]  U. Neisser,et al.  Childhood amnesia and the beginnings of memory for four early life events. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[72]  L R Squire,et al.  On the development of declarative memory. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[73]  L. Squire.  Declarative and Nondeclarative Memory: Multiple Brain Systems Supporting Learning and Memory , 1992, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[74]  G. Goodman,et al.  Developmental changes in event memory. , 1992, Child development.

[75]  Willem A. Wagenaar,et al.  Theoretical perspectives on autobiographical memory , 1992 .

[76]  A D Baddeley,et al.  Telescoping is not time compression: A model , 1989, Memory & cognition.

[77]  E. Tulving.  Memory: Performance, knowledge, and experience , 1989 .

[78]  S. White,et al.  Childhood events recalled by children and adults. , 1989, Advances in child development and behavior.

[79]  M. Conway,et al.  Organization in autobiographical memory , 1987, Memory & cognition.

[80]  E. Tulving.  Multiple memory systems and consciousness. , 1987, Human neurobiology.

[81]  E. Tulving.  Memory and consciousness. , 1985 .

[82]  Herbert F. Crovitz,et al.  Frequency of episodic memories as a function of their age , 1974 .