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.