Emergence of Autobiographical Memory 1 The Emergence of Autobiographical Memory: A Social Cultural Developmental Theory Katherine Nelson City University of New York Graduate Center Robyn Fivush Emory University Running Head: Emergence of Autobiographical Memory Address for Correspondence: Katherine Nelson, 50 Riverside Drive Apt 4B, New York, NY 10024. Phone: 212-724-1538. email
[email protected] and Robyn Fivush, Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322. Phone 404-727-4124, email
[email protected] Emergence of Autobiographical Memory 2 Abstract We present here a multi-component dynamic developmental theory of human autobiographical memory that emerges gradually across the preschool years. The components that contribute to the process of emergence include basic memory abilities, language and narrative, adult memory talk, temporal understanding and understanding of self and other. We review the empirical developmental evidence within each of these components to show how each contributes to the timing, quantity, and quality of personal memories from the early years of life. We then consider the relevance of the theory to explanations of childhood amnesia and how the theory accounts for and predicts the complex findings on adults’ earliest memories, including individual, gender and cultural differences. Emergence of Autobiographical Memory 3 “In probing my childhood (which is the next best thing to probing one’s eternity) I see the awakening of consciousness as a series of spaced flashes, with the intervals between them gradually diminishing until bright blocks of perception are formed, affording memory a slippery hold.” (Nabokov, 1989, p. 20-21). The theory of autobiographical memory proposed here is that of a functionally new human memory system, one that emerges gradually across the preschool years in the context of developments in language, memory and self, supplementing the memory systems of early life.