"Family Stories" and Their Implications for Preschoolers' Memories of Personal Events

Autor/inn/en	Larkina, Marina; Bauer, Patricia J.
Titel	"Family Stories" and Their Implications for Preschoolers' Memories of Personal Events
Quelle	In: Journal of Cognition and Development, 13 (2012) 4, S.473-504 (32 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1524-8372
DOI	10.1080/15248372.2011.591295
Schlagwörter	Adults; Retention (Psychology); Science Experiments; Recall (Psychology); Visual Stimuli; Story Telling; Family Influence; Mothers; Young Children; Interviews; Cognitive Development + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Merkfähigkeit; Abberufung; Mother; Mutter; Frühe Kindheit; Interviewing; Interviewtechnik; Kognitive Entwicklung
Abstract	Most adults experience childhood amnesia: They have very few memories of events prior to 3 to 4 years of age. Nevertheless, some early memories are retained. Multiple factors likely are responsible for the survival of early childhood memories, including external representations such as videos, photographs, and conversations about past experiences, which help sustain memories over time. The present research was an experimental test of whether repeated recounting of past events influences young children's recall during a year delay. Twenty-four mothers and their 4-year-old children talked repeatedly about two randomly selected personal events that were assigned to become "family-story" events. Mothers were asked not to initiate conversations about two other randomly selected events ("control" events). A year later, children were interviewed by an experimenter about all four events. In free recall, children retrieved more of the family-story than the control events. With the aid of "Wh"- questions, levels of retrieval no longer differed. Moreover, the completeness and organization of children's narratives did not depend on whether they were about family-story or control events. The pattern of results suggests that repeated conversations about a past event help to maintain accessibility of the memory but may not substantially impact the integrity of the memory trace itself. The role of family stories in children's social and autobiographical memory development is discussed. (Contains 6 tables and 3 footnotes.) (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Psychology Press. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10