Very long-term memories of a salient preschool event
Abstract
Abstract
Children who attended either a younger (mean age = 3frac12;years) or an older (mean age = 4frac12; years)preschool classroom were interviewed twice about an emergency school evacuation in response to a fire alarm. All children were able to answer some memory questions 2 weeks after the evacuation occurred, but the memory narratives produced by older preschool children showed a more refined knowledge of the temporal and causal sequence of events. Seven years later, memory of the fire alarm was reassessed. Only those preadolescents who had been in the older preschool group at the time of the alarm showed convincing evidence of long-term memory. The offset of childhood amnesia appears to be influenced by developmental changes in cognitive processing.
Department
Psychology
Publication Date
4-1994
Journal Title
Applied Cognitive Psychology
Publisher
Wiley
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1002/acp.2350080202
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Pillemer, D. B., Picariello, M. L. and Pruett, J. C. (1994), Very long-term memories of a salient preschool event. Appl. Cognit. Psychol., 8: 95–106. doi: 10.1002/acp.2350080202
Rights
Copyright © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd