Autobiographical memory and culture

According to Fivush and Nelson(2003), autographical memory is related to language development. So, Fivush and Nelson(2003) argued that most people have childhood amnesia before age 3, because we have not developed verbal language well enough to describe an event. In addition, Fivush and Nelson(2003) argued that the vividness of the autographical memory depends on how a mother to describe past events. More specific, mothers from Western culture might focus on describing children’s personal emotion and action. On the other hand, mothers from Eastern culture might describe more moral emotion and lessons. Personally, my autographical memory supports Fivush and Nelson(2003) that we need to develop verbal language in order to develop autographical memory. However, I am not certain that culture might directly influence how parents elaborate a past event.

Consistent with Fivush and Nelson(2003), I have very little or nearly no memory before or around age 3. Although I know what I was doing and where I had been before age 3 by seeing photos, I have hardly to recall how I was feeling and what I was doing in detail from photo. Also, when my mom told me that I cried so loud when she placed me in a kindergarten around age 2 and half, but I have no memory about this event. Furthermore, one of my nannies speaks Cantonese and she told me that I knew how to speak Cantonese when I was around age 3. Nevertheless, Cantonese always sounds like another foreign languge to me. In general, my earliest autographical memory is after age 3. It is possible I started to understand more vocabularies in Chinese, which is my mother tone. Consequently, I understand the conversations among my families and I could recall some fragmented past events after I was 3 year old. Nevertheless, my childhood memory is more vivid after age 5. I could recall more vividly that my teacher asked me to sleep during the nap time when I was age 6. Or, I can easily recall that I was crying and sitting on the ground because my mom did not buy the toy for me. By comparing my childhood memory among different stages, I agree that we need to acquire verbal language first in order to encode an event vividly.

Clearly, every mom from different culture has different styles to describe their children’s past events. Nevertheless, I do not agree that mother from Chinese culture described less children’s own activities and emotion in past events. At least, my mom and my aunts describe their children’s own activities and emotions in the past events. Usually, my mom describes that I laughed a lot and I seldom had unpleasant mood when I was a baby. Likewise, my aunts describe that how my cousins behave jealously and angrily when everyone paid more attention to their newborn siblings. Thus, mothers from Chinese culture still pay attention to their children’s own emotion in the past event. Additionally, my mom and my aunts focus on describing their children’s own activities in a past event as well , however, they might not be able to focus on describing their children’s own activities every time when describing a past event. Obviously, parents might not remember past events through time. They probably remembered the past events vividly only if they were impressed. For instance, my parents can recall vividly that my brother got burned by boiling water when he was age 3. On the other hand, my parents could not focus on describing my own activities in other daily past events, because they were distracting by something like their work, TV or talking to others. For instance, parents might not pay much attention to children,if they felt exhausted after they finished work or when they pay more attention to doing the work . So, although the culture might indirectly influence how parents elaborate a past event, how vivid and how much detail parents could recall children’s activities in a past event mainly depends on how much attention parents pay to children at that time.
In short, verbal language development influenced how well we recall a past event in different stages. Futhermore, how parents elaborate a past event would influence how well we recall a past event. However, the cultural and economic ( i.g. bringing work to home was normal for every parent at that time) factor might directly or indirectly influence how well parents recalled the past events of their children.