Child Development

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

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The differences between an infants' memory and the memories of older children and adults are quantitative rather than qualitative. In other words, these differences involve time instead of the quality of memories. Infants, similarly to adults and older children, forget memories over time, can remember lost memories through reminders, and can have memories become modified due to time lapses. However, infants cannot remember their memories for nearly as long as older children or adults, even when both ages have the same final level of acquirement and have portrayed the same level of retention one day after training. Infants also process memories at a much slower pace than older subjects. For example, at three months of age no evidence is present until after eight hours of a reminder that the memory could be reactivated. Surprisingly, only three months later, when infants are six months old, it only takes one hour for evidence to show that a memory has been reactivated and it can be completely recovered at after four hours as opposed to the three days it would take a three month old child.

In conclusion, researchers have shown that the essential devices which cause memory processing are similar between infants and older children or adults, but that the temporal limits of memory develop as an infant grows.

Rovee-Collier found out about the specificity of infant memory through analyzing testing results concerning a mobile or cloth liner which differed from the mobile or cloth liner present during original encoding. For example, a 2 month old infant will be unable to recognize a mobile only one day after initial encoding if one new object has been presented. Additionally infants can't recognize the original mobile if visual surroundings have been altered. Let's say the color of the liner draped around a six...