Assignment #7: The Fate of Early Memories Mark L. Howe Chapters 5-8

The Fate of Early Memories 

Mark L. Howe

Chapters 5-8

Autobiographical memories are usually what we refer to in everyday life as memory, the ability to recall a life event from the past that makes up “you”.  More recently there has been a surge in recall of early autobiographical memories (before age 2). The author believes that although there is the ability to store, encode, and retrieve memory at an early age, that later recall is hindered because of the changes that occur in the brain from age two and up. The memories, even if they were something traumatic (which are the ones most usually recalled as memories before age 2) had a low possibility as being encoded as traumatic because they were too young to fully understand what was happening and to later recall it as such. Freud postulated that autobiographical memories were permanent and unchanging while Kohler believed that they were fluid and changing (84).

The sociolinguistic approach believes that autobiographical memories form once children achieve the ability to communicate effectively. Also once they can communicate with adults they learn to put their memories into an order, and can share them as experiences similar to the way adults do. The author feels that the sociolinguistic approach is lacking and does not believe that autobiographical memories are formed more clearly with the acquisition of language, as it has been shown that memories can be stored and retrieved prior to this acquisition. The author says the change in recall of autobiographical memories is, “… the personalization of the event; that is, it is no longer simply something that happened but, something that happened to me” (89).  The idea that autobiographical memories can be encoded once there is an idea of self and that previous to this formation of self memories do not have the ability to be accepted into a category of making up ‘the self’ makes sense. A child would most likely not be able to recall an event about them from the past if they didn’t identify themselves as a ‘self’ at that point.

The author points out many different issues that occur within the study of memory. The study of autobiographical memory is difficult to pursue within the construct of a test environment. I have found through different readings and viewings of methodology concerning memory that I tend to agree with the author. There doesn’t seem to be a clear construct to intake and interpret data. The idea of the ‘self’ coming into play, and that being the start of when memories become autobiographical makes sense to me, and a reasonable explanation for why memories start after a certain time in life. Once there is a connection to ‘you’ then memories can become organized and recalled as it pertains to whom you are.

Assignment #6: The Fate of Early Memories Mark L. Howe Chapters 1-5

The Fate of Early Memories 

Mark L. Howe

Chapters 1-5

Different Sensory perceptions develop throughout early infancy, even in utero. A sense of sound is found to develop in some key stages in the third trimester of infant development. Movements and increased heart-rates have been monitored in fetuses 25 weeks into there gestation period (4). Infants at the age of four months can distinguish their mother’s voices from that of an adult female stranger and have a preference for it. Amazingly, by six weeks infants can recognize a familiar nursery rhyme after just three days of hearing it (5). Infants also have well developed taste senses upon birth, tied in with the olfactory senses, they can smell and taste differences between foods. Also they can smell the difference between their mother and other people (6). While these senses are pretty well developed considering the age of the infant, the sense of sight is not highly developed. Despite the fact that some key factors are in place, such as the eyes and their structures, the neurological components are not on the same level. Within the first three months there is a rapid development of the necessary interconnections, and within the first year these become more fine-tuned (6). While early on (pre-3 months) there is poor visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and color vision by that post 3 month mark infants get to a point where they are even able to recognize faces (7).

While infants start to move their visual perceptions from the outside forms of objects to the inside patterns – they also begin to show expectation of events. Also an ability to hold attention and shift ones attention accordingly begins to develop when infants learn to crawl. They begin to sense depth and instead of taking things in pieces they are able to perceive them as a whole (8).  Through the development of the senses as well as some motor capabilities it is shown that even at infant stages, human are able to have the brain functions to create memories (9).

Studies were done in older humans with amnesia and with rhesus monkeys that had brain injuries to see how human memory capacity can grow and how it is affected by the changes in the brain. The problem with doing this and trying to compare it to how a growing memory can function within an infant is that the infants mind is still intact and unharmed, so it is difficult to compare the two (10,11). The ability of recall develops in infants between 6 months and 12 months. Though some other studies have suggested that 6 week old infants were able to imitate facial expressions after a 24 hour period, so there could be recall happening much earlier (12).  

So while early memories can be formed it is yet to really be seen if a majority can recall them later in life on a regular basis. While the definition of memory needs to be set, if it is the ability to recall in language an event, like an autobiographical memory, then memory can not happen until language is obtained. The author has asserted that observed behavior in response to events could be taken as memory (16).

There are masses of experiments used to try to determine memory at any given age. Many of them rely on the recollection of sequence events, recalled at different lengths of time, some with reiterations of sequences and some without. Many findings do not produce results that can be considered fact, as there seem to be many variables. For example, one had a mother read a certain story to her child in utero and when the child was born they seemed to show a preference toward the one they had been read while developing in the last trimester. This, however, cannot keep being tested as the book would be continually read and new memories could perhaps form.

Many advances in memory happen past infancy. Toddlers cannot remember things for a very lengthy amount of time, but once the stage occurs where they begin to think of themselves as a self then the memories become more able to recall as they become part of an autobiographical memory. Children’s recall also improves as they are able to have different strategies involved with thinking. Any gaps they may not remember they can fill in because they have the knowledge to figure out something they may not directly recall (36,37). Something that was also shown to affect memory of younger children was the presence of outside stimuli not pertinent to the information that was meant to be retained. Cognitive inhibition (the ability to shut out unnecessary information so that what is interesting to the person can be stored and later retrieved) develops in older children (40). Once this is developed, forgetting information becomes part of remembering as well (called directed forgetting). So the forgotten information is still there but you recall the important information (44).

A way that memories imprint themselves in through the distinctiveness of the experience had. The distinction helps make something memorable because it separates itself out from a category of other. For example, if you are given a list of animals but one things in the list is a piece of furniture than you would more likely remember that piece of furniture because it was different than the rest of the list (53). Though while the list might work better for adults something that helps children remember better is a shift in perception, so from black and white to color (53).

Memories formed after traumatic experiences do not necessarily mean that they will be remembered more clearly than mundane day-to-day events. In the statement “…memory, even for traumatic experiences, is reconstructive, is subject to suggestibility, and can involve the construction of false memories” (61), it is stated how all memories, even those that seems to effect our lives in a profound way, can be subject to change. Though is has to be said that traumatic memories, while they may not be able to be recalled accurately, could still be with the storage areas of the mind. High stress levels also create a release in the brain that can help or hinder memory; too much stress and the memory does not retain as well and is also actually said to inhibit the function of the mind to retain memories generally (68).

A memory is never an exact recall of what happened. The memory is imbued with the emotional ties, in construction and interpretation, as well as the person’s knowledge and beliefs. Information prior to an event can give a heightened sense of state, which can modify the memory. Also when emotional aspects of an event are surprising, they can help in remembering that event. Overall, regardless of the good or bad nature of an event, memories are most remembered due to their unique nature (78).

Learning about the early development of memories is interesting to me, while my work strives to work through memory; it is necessary to see how those memories could have been formed. It is also fascinating to see what sticks in memory and maybe what is not retained as well, or within that idea what is retained but not able to be recalled. The idea of stress impacting my ability to form memories is something I had not previously considered. Overall I like knowing the opinion of a researcher on how memories are formed, retained, stored, and brought back out in comparison to my first read, Tinkers, where there was a recollection of memory but not a real explanation as to their formation, and work that into how mine have been formed.

Assignment #5: Summary of chapters 1, 7, 8, and 9 from "Marking the Mind: A History of Memory" by Kurt Danzinger AND Summary of Article "A Basic-Systems Approach to Autobiographical Memory" by David C. Rubin

Sarah Zuckerman

October 12, 2013

Research Methodologies AVT 600

Assignment #4

Summary of chapters 1, 7, 8, and 9 from 

"Marking the Mind: A History of Memory" by Kurt Danzinger

There are many different theories on memory, if it is some kind of mystical force that cannot be truly understood or if, through the compartmentalization of different aspects of brain functions, it could be sorted through and comprehended. While Aristotle identified the memory as being stored in the heart, medical groups later suggested that different portions of the memory were situated within the brain, the sections being the front, back and sides. Other cultures postulated that it was stored within the brain tissue, others within fluid filled cavities (222). There was then also processes of the brain such as imagination, judgment, and intellect. When combined with the primary senses vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch (246), these were referred to as the “inner senses”. These “inner senses” were studied through medical and philosophical scopes. In the medical field they strove to pinpoint a place for each operation of the human body, this came about mainly if there was some kind of incident that stopped the use of a portion of “inner sense” and what that would effect. In the philosophical field they thought more into how the “inner senses” were connected and their capabilities (247, 248).

While there is a vast history of the study of memory there are many different ways that groups have studied it throughout the past. I tend toward the thinking of an intertwining of different human aspects of the mind to inform memory. This lends itself to explain such strong reactions to the sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch of different outside objects that influence how we then feel about them. Within my work I strive to learn about memory more from an inner context but is interesting to see the development of the history of memory over the last few thousand years. 

Summary of Article

"A Basic-Systems Approach to Autobiographical Memory"

by David C. Rubin

Autobiographical memory is the recollection of events that make up a person's past. These events are recalled in a different manner than semantic memory, which is remembering general information or concept based knowledge not associated with the recollection of events. Autobiographical memory includes memories that many modalities are applied to including vision, hearing, smell, emotion, narrative, and language. Since multiple systems are involved in autobiographical memory, Rubin hypothesizes that "the self is not a single entity... it is distributed among individual systems (79)". The self then comes from how these systems interact with each other and the world around them. Much of memory is shared cultural experience and expectations rather than what an individual solely remembers.  Memories are also affected by the emotions tied to the event. Emotional discrepancies have effect on memories, such as people with depression, who have less specific memories and tend to combine similar feeling events with one another. On the other hand, memories have seen to be enhanced in people with panic disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder in relation to threat-related provocations (81). Through different studies they have found that the brain does not work as a uniform information-processing center, but as unique interactions among basic systems (83).

Within this article I found it interesting how the dynamic between memory and emotions played out through different studies. As one who at different times has been dyagnosed with multiple things stated within the article I can reflect on my experiences and how they have come to form my memories and how I recall them. Through both readings I can see how the study of memory has transformed based on the period of time it was studied as well as the group that is reporting the findings. 

Assignment #4:Summary of Part 1 of "Tinkers" by Paul Harding and it's Relationship to my Current Body of Work

Sarah Zuckerman

October 4, 2013

Research Methodologies AVT 600

Assignment #4

Summary of Part 1 of "Tinkers" by Paul Harding 

and it's Relationship to my Current Body of Work

Paul Harding’s “Tinkers”, a Pulitzer Prize fiction novel, explores the mindset of a man eight days before his death. George Washington Crosby recalls memories of his life including, and predominantly of his father Howard. Within the structure of this novel, Howard also recalls his memories, and the two become intertwined as father and son inducing their life experiences and how they relate to each other, their life’s work, and their love of tinkering, mostly for George, with clocks. The idea of time is prominent as George’s last days approach and as his life of being a horologist shapes how he remembers his personal time. This novel relates to my work through the use of memory, loss, and parent child relationships. Through my work I recall memories and work through the idea of loss as it relates to my parent child relationship. As George tries to evoke his father he has a more difficult time doing so the longer the years have been. Also he struggles with the idea of being forgotten. As I work to act in a way to remember my mother, I see the truth in his words,

“…be mingled with in endless ways of other people’s memories, so that I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all the other vitreous squares floating about in whoever else’s frames, because there is always space left in reserve for their own time, and to my great-grandchildren, with more space than tiles, I will be no more than the smoky arrangement of a set of rumors, and to their great-grandchildren I will be no more than a tint of some obscure color, and to their great grandchildren nothing they ever know about, and so what army of strangers and ghosts has shaped and colored me until back to Adam… But it doesn’t stop; it simply ends. It is a final pattern scattered without so much as a pause at the end, at the end of what, at the end of this” (pages 65,66 Tinkers, Paul Harding).

This passage illustrates how I think of memories of persons past and my concern for how they will be remembered. I want to remember them but also live my life in the present. I feel it is important to have a collection of memories, shared, so that future persons know who you are, and also that at this point in time I can look to remember those to make up my past and influence who I am today.

Throughout the novel there are many facets of memory that are explored. Some rely on keepsakes; that at their sight remind people of things they had long since forgotten. Some are of sounds George hears, particularly the silence while in his deathbed, and ponders this silence until he realizes that all the clocks have wound down, due to his inability to get up to wind them, as he is bed ridden. His wife comments that she finds the ticking of the clocks an annoyance but there is a realization later that the sound actually came as a comfort after her husband’s death, and reminded her of him. This idea of different sensory perceptions accumulating to produce and induce memories I think is interesting to take into account – the effect that a number of these senses can have one you can in one moment be profound and in another disturbing.

Also encased within this novel is the idea of items passed on from one human to another as they know they are entering or have passed the stage of death. In one portion, Howard receives an old book from a man he helped for many years as he delivered goods to him while he lived as a hermit in the nearby woods. Before the hermit died he left a personal token, the novel The Scarlet Letter signed by the author a personal friend of his, for Howard. The things people leave us before they die, or things that happen upon us because of death are reminders and confirmations of who those people were. I think that keepsakes are independent of people but of comfort, sometimes, to those who are left behind. All of these ideas culminate in my work of memory and relationships in conjunction with death.