JOURNAL ENTRY
a) Describe
The phenomenon I choose is childhood amnesia. Childhood amnesia is a situation whereby an adult is unable to retrieve past memories of their infancy or childhood period (Hayne, 2004). When probed to recall early personal memories most people both adults and children typically do not recall any memory of their early childhood or infancy.
b) Interesting
I find the childhood amnesia phenomenon to be interesting because I have practically experienced it. There are some past memories that when I am reminded I totally do not recall. Therefore, I have developed an interest to research this phenomenon so as to understand the rationale behind what causes childhood amnesia.
c) Research
Childhood amnesia is explained currently through neurologically based transitions moving from one memory to another. The rationale behind childhood amnesia asserts that the infants’ capacity to encode information accelerates as they age (Hayne, 2004). Therefore, older infants with similar encoding conditions definitely develop better memory presentations as compared to those younger infants (Hayne, 2004). Memory retrieval is also impacted by encoding speed based on the age difference. The retention intervals in which the infants’ memories can be retrieved accelerate intensely with age (Hayne, 2004). Memory retrieval flexibility accelerates with age in the course of the infancy period. However, the fact is that much of our infancy memory is inaccessible to be recalled later in development (Hayne, 2004). Events that happen in early life have a more lasting effect as compared to experiences that occur in adulthood.
d) Relate/Follow up
The childhood amnesia phenomenon relates to infants’ perceptual development. This is because infant perceptual development focuses on the infants’ ability to smell, feel, reason, hear or see (Gibson & Pick, 2000). This relates to the childhood amnesia phenomenon because it entails the development of perception of events which are kept as memories in the infants’ mind (Gibson & Pick, 2000). However, the follow-up question is; how is an infant’s perception determined? To investigate this phenomenon, the following experiment will be undertaken; infants will be placed in a jolly jumper with their feet touching the floor then leave the infants to find out on their own what would happen. At the end of this experiment, the infants that will discover that pushing powers and the springs brings out the task constraints will show that they have developed perception.