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Magic Memories: Young Children’s Verbal Recall After a 6‐Year Delay
Author(s) -
Jack Fiona,
Simcock Gabrielle,
Hayne Harlene
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01699.x
Subject(s) - psychology , recall , developmental psychology , magic (telescope) , nonverbal communication , verbal memory , cognitive psychology , cognition , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience
This report describes the first prospective study specifically designed to assess children’s verbal memory for a unique event 6 years after it occurred. Forty‐six 27‐ to 51‐month‐old children took part in a unique event and were interviewed about it twice, after 24‐hr and 6‐year delays. During the 6‐year interview, 9 children verbally recalled the event, including 2 who were under 3 years old when the event occurred. This may be the most convincing evidence to date that such early experiences can be verbally recalled after long delays. These data have important implications for current theories of memory development and childhood amnesia and underscore some of the problems associated with evaluating the veracity of early memories under less controlled conditions.