Relating age at encoding in early childhood to adult recall: Development of flashbulb memories.

Abstract

Three hundred thirty-eight informants who were between 1 and 7 years of age in 1963 were asked about their personal memories surrounding assassination of President Kennedy and six other significant public events. The probability and degree of elaboration of recall showed a gradual growth function with increasing age at time of event for assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy but not for other events. Self-reports of amount of rehearsal showed a low correlation with recall. Recall was high for resignation of President Nixon in 1974, suggesting that surprise is not necessary for formation of enduring memories of significant events. Methodological advantages and disadvantages of studying early memories for public events are discussed. This study presents a new look at a very old problem in psychology, namely, relationship between age during early childhood when an event occurs and likelihood of its recall in adulthood. The study of early memories is often associated with an interest in psychoanalyti c theory. Indeed, common notion of psychoanalysis as a set of techniques for making repressed memories of childhood accessible to conscious recall attests to this linkage. Freud's statement of problem is quite clear. In his discussion of infantile sexuality, he noted the peculiar amnesia which, in case of most people, though by no means all, hides earliest beginnings of their childhood up to their sixth or eigth year (1905/1953, p. 174). The termchildhood amnesia (or infantile amnesia) remains as a description of this phenomenon. Still, it is necessary to point out that a number of 19th-century genetic psychologists predate Freud in their concern with probing early memories. Priority seems to belong to Gallon (1879), who at age 57 used method of word associations to activate his