Infantile Amnesia and Its Causes - Essay Example

 Amnesia is defined as a defect in recalling memories. It has three main forms: retrograde, anterograde and infantile. Of these three types, infantile amnesia has different characteristics than other forms of amnesia and everyone experiences it. Infantile amnesia refers to the inability of a person to recall his childhood years, more specifically the first four years of his or her life. It is also known as childhood amnesia. Infantile or childhood amnesia does not refer to the absolute absence of memories regarding the first few years of life; rather it is the paucity of recollections from the early childhood years. It can be influenced by both personal factors as well as cultural reasons. It is usually seen that adults can not remember much from the first five years of life. Only a handful number of people are able to recall events before three years of age. People are able to recall only major events. Examples of such events include the birth of a sibling, a traumatic event such as a car accident or the death of the mother or the father. People have been able to recall events such as their own hospitalization or a brother’s or sister’s birth when they were around two years of age. Adults may have a few recollections of their parents if they had lost them as early as when they were three years of age. According to Sternberg and Mio (2008), the probability that an event can be recalled by an adult depends on his or her intelligence, education, and language ability. Moreover, it has been sent that adults are able to recall more memories from their preschool years than from the earliest years of their lives. The reliability and the correctness of the events recalled by people are also doubtful since many psychologists believe that the accuracy of the events a child encounter is doubtful even if a long period of time has not elapsed. There are a number of theories regarding the possible causes of infantile amnesia. The explanations for the offset of amnesia at three years of age mainly revolve around developments in basic and essential memory processes. The lack of development in the infant brain is one of the causes that can contribute to lapses in memory for the initial years of a person’s life. Some psychologists believe that the neurological structures that serve to promote the brain processing that helps develop autobiographical memory are not completely formed. Therefore early recollections are not formed. In infants and young children, the regions of the brain that are responsible for forming long-term memories- hippocampal regions of the forebrain- have not developed properly. Moreover, there is a greater need to develop cognitive parts of the brain in the first year of life. During the first year, the prefrontal cortex develops rapidly and there is also an increased cognitive performance. Consequently, only that level of autobiographical memory develops that is useful to these cognitive functions. People whose hippocampal has incurred some sort of damage are seen to have difficulty in remembering and recalling events that they have recently experienced; however, their learning capabilities are intact and may be able to retain many cognitive and perceptual skills. Infants deem to exhibit an early developing procedural system that enables them to retain simple memories. A later-developing declarative system functions as the hub for developing autobiographical memory (Robinson-Riegler, 2008). Another explanation given for childhood amnesia is the immaturity of language skills. Language skills are considered to play an integral role in the development of autobiographical memory. Children are better able to associate and relate events if they are able to express and communicate them properly through language. The linguistic abilities of the children develop rapidly during age two to four and this is the time when they are able to reproduce the details of events. The significance of language in the development of a long-term memory can be demonstrated by studies conducted on the differences in narrative styles of families, that is how they might muse over and relate past events. It has been seen that the events from childhood that adults are able to recall are the ones that have been the matter of frequent discussion in the family. Parents help to craft a child’s view regarding an event. Their conversations and recall of events accentuates certain elements of the event, such as how it occurred and why it occurred. As events are reinstated, the child starts to form a nonspecific event memory for events that occur repeatedly as well as exclusive events, and so are able to start stocking long-term memories. Many psychologists contend that even though language is the most influential means of relating an experience, it does not determine if the event can be recalled or not. They propose that a sense of the self, or self-concept, is essential to the development of memory in young children. Sense of self is defined as the awareness that a person holds that one is an individual with distinctive and recognizable traits and that the person has knowledge of the things around him or her and can influence the world. Since autobiographical memory is related to the knowledge a person has about himself or herself, as well as the personal experiences, many psychologists argue that children do not have recollections of the early years of life as they do not have an understanding of themselves. Psychoanalysts have proposed another theory for infantile amnesia. Childhood is marked by feelings of guilt and conflict, and these feelings are usually prevented from being expressed in order to fight back anxiety. Sigmund Freud was of the view that infantile amnesia can result from the repression of traumatic experiences in the life of infants and young children since this repression is part of the psychosexual development in every child. Thus, in conclusion there are many views regarding the causes of infantile amnesia. Young children do not have adequate schemas to store information, and childhood schemas do not match with adult schemas; so even if the child commits events to memories at a very young age, he or she would not be able to retrieve it in adulthood (Esgate, Groome, & Baker, 2005). Reference List Esgate, A., Groome, D., & Baker, K. (2005). An introduction to applied cognitive psychology. East Sussex: Psychology Press. Robinson-Riegler, B., & Robinson-Riegler, G. L. (2008). Cognitive Psychology: Applying the Science of the Mind, 2/e (2nd ed.). Delhi: Pearson Education India. Sternberg, R. J., & Mio, J. (2008). Cognitive psychology (5th ed.). Cengage Learning. Read More