Children's memory

This week we read about memory, and how it develops. I think that this information was the most interesting to me, because there were several examples of children remembering things which had never occurred. I had heard about this happening with adults (particularly with Elizabeth Loftus’s work), but didn’t realize how dangerous the concept is until I was presented with how damaging it could be to children. Children that are exposed to crimes (either as a victim or a witness) are already in a vulnerable position, due to their inexperience with dealing with the information they have been exposed to. Combining that with their impressionability creates a situation even worse than that experienced by adults that witness or are the victims of crime.

The scariest part to me is that there are situations that I think I remember, but now I can’t be so sure about. There’s one specific instance in which I remember sitting in the passenger seat of a car, being driven to a Child Development Center and hanging out with a bunch of other kids, but also having access to watching my mother play tennis. (She was down on a lower level in a gymnasium, while I was on an upper level with a balcony overlooking the gym.) None of this happened. I know that it couldn’t have because I asked my mother about it later on in life. But it’s very clear in my mind still. I just wish I knew where I’d gotten the idea from. On a further note, I believe I’m very lucky not to have ever been exposed to something that could have been damaging to me, either being pressured into falsely accusing someone of misbehavior or having been mistreated and having someone try to talk me out of that idea.

It shocks and amazes me that we’ve been going off testimony that has basically been tampered with for years, without ever realizing that the words these children were saying were not actually their own. The worst part of it is that I don’t think anyone in particular is always at fault for it. The adults that were asking the children leading questions probably didn’t always realize that they were pushing the child to say things that weren’t true. However, I also realize that there are instances where someone does push a child to say something that they know isn’t true (i.e. the example from page 227 in the text). Nor can any blame be placed on the children in these dreadful situations, because it’s not their faults that their memories are easily manipulated. And because they don’t understand a lot of social situations, they just try to please the people they are talking to.

However, part of me wonders how much things like IQ and general memory effectiveness come into play in these situations. I guess I could be considered to have a pretty high IQ, but I have a terrible memory. I have absolutely no capacity to remember dates and times, and I don’t believe I ever have. The only time that I can specifically remember things was when I told myself to remember them. There was a time when I was a kid living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and two people were killed at the video store just down the street from my house. I remember that when I heard about it, I decided from then on to pay attention to the world around me, in case I ever witnessed a crime, so that I would be able to report it and help put the bad guys in prison. The thing that I realized after trying to do that all the time is that there’s a lot going on in the world, both in reality and in my mind. As a child with a lot of mental processing going on, it’s hard to pay attention to things that could be happening, in addition to things that are relevant in your life.

I suppose this relates back to thinking about children being used for eyewitness testimony. I just wonder if the prosecutors have ever realized how hard it must be for children to sort through everything in their minds. Not only is there so much going on (they’re still learning how to be people, for one thing) but they don’t have the practice that adults have with using the information we contain.

Susie's Imaginary Friend vs. Tommy's Imagined Persona

The idea that gender may play a role in the types of imaginary play, poses an interesting question regarding why this may be the case. Although there isn't an overwhelming sense of consistency regarding the differences in boys and girls role play preferences, according to Alison Shawber there is a degree of difference in that girls tend to imagine an imaginary companion or companions, where as boys more often tend to have pretend identities. There may be several reasons for this difference including a possible need girls feel to nurture, the differences in how boys and girls are spoken to by their parents, or even the fact that at about the same age children are inventing or embodying these characters is at approximately the same time children begin to acknowledge more concretely the types of roles boys/men and girls/women preform which may encourage more quiet make-believe play from girls and louder, rougher play from boys, or the fact that boys may want to emulate a strong individual.
Although people may believe "girls have an innate need to nurture" that is in fact not entirely the case. Young girls are instead bombarded by images of nurturing, endlessly caring, and attentive women who form the mental picture of what it is to be a woman and because of this I find it very difficult to believe that girls are more likely to have imaginary companions than boys.
One difference that has been seen in children and their interactions with their parents is the different styles of communication that parents utilize when speaking to their children. Mothers tend to speak more frequently and with more elaboration when speaking to their daughters which could help to cultivate the level of imagination required to invent another entire individual; where as mothers tend to be more direct and concise with their sons which could require them to rely on outside stimulation, such as cartoons, to help them create their role play characters.
This is also the time in children's lives that they begin to more completely grasp that in frequent situations the expectations of them differ greatly. This difference is most often seen in the fact that girls are expected to "act like a lady" or "not get dirty" where as boys are told "go outside and play" and are less frequently punished for getting dirty or being overly loud. This may be one of the causes of role play differences because boys tend to embody loud and active pretend identities and girls may not be given the freedom to embody such boisterous characters.
Another possible explanation for this difference in tendency is that boys may be groomed to want to emulate a strong individual, I personally think that this is the most likely explanation for any difference that can be found within the imaginary play preferences in girls and boys. Due to the fact that our society constantly tells men of all ages that in order to thrive they must be strong and independent it seems only necessary that to achieve this mentality as young men and adults we must begin teaching boys these subtle mental pictures early. In looking at the examples given in the lecture of Spiderman and Batman we observe two superheros who are strong, secretive, brave, unemotional, and very autonomous, characteristics which we find valuable and societaly superior.
I am by no means attempting to say that these circumstances are universal or the causes of these differences I just think that these are factors which could influence the difference and should possibly more carefully looked at. Although, as I previously mentioned, there is not statistically significant evidence that these differences are overly prevalent among young children it seems that as our society continues to progress and these stereotypes of men and women become more ingrained these differences may continue to become more visible and more statistically predictable when examining role play behavior in children.

Non-parent college students' attitudes toward imaginary companions

Parental support is defined as a key factor in the development of imagination, including the maintenance of imaginary companions (Singer & Singer, 1990; Taylor, 1999). Despite the fact that many parents have positive attitudes toward imaginary companions and support the interaction of their children with imaginary companions, such positive attitudes are not adopted by all parents (Taylor, 1999). Even though there are some children who create imaginary companions in spite of the negative attitudes of their parents, parental disapproval is considered one of the reasons why children abandon their imaginary companions after preschool (Taylor, 1999). Given the importance of the positive or negative contributions of parents in terms of both creating and sustaining an imaginary companion, it is not surprising that parental attitudes toward imaginary companions have been studied by various researchers (Gleason, 2004; Mauro, 1991; Taylor, 1999). However, research in this area is still very limited, and non-parent populations are usually not examined.

Last summer, I conducted a research project to study the attitudes of non-parent college students toward imaginary companions Based on the relatively more negative attitudes of parents toward older children’s developing or maintaining imaginary companions (Taylor, 1999), it was hypothesized that non-parent college students would have more negative attitudes toward older children than younger children with respect to the child’s interaction with imaginary companions. It was also hypothesized that in parallel with the findings that mothers are more likely than fathers to adopt positive attitudes toward their children’s imaginary companions (Gleason, 2005; Mauro, 1991), female college students would show more positive attitudes toward imaginary companions than their male counterparts. Finally, as the positive or negative attitudes of parents do not differ according to the gender of the child (Gleason, 2005), it was hypothesized that gender of the child would not yield differences in the attitudes of non-parent college students.

73 non-parent college students (38 females and 35 males) participated in the study. Materials used in the study consisted of two different versions of a survey. In both versions, the section on the attitudes toward a child’s interaction with an imaginary friend consisted of two vignettes. In the first vignette, participants were asked to read a short description of a 5-year-old child interacting with an imaginary friend and rate on a 7-item Likert scale (a) how concerned they would be; (b) how harmful having an imaginary friend would be for the child; (c) how beneficial having an imaginary friend would be for the child (d) whether they would think having an imaginary friend implies that the child has emotional problems. In order to assess whether children’s age has an effect on individuals’ attitudes, in the second vignette, participants were asked to read a short description of a 10-year-old child interacting with an imaginary friend. The two versions of the survey were identical except the child’s gender.

The study supported the hypothesis that non-parent college students have more negative attitudes toward older children than younger children with respect to the child’s interaction with imaginary companions. As expected, gender of the child did not yield differences in the attitudes of non-parent college students. Contrary to expectations, female participants did not have more positive attitudes toward children with imaginary companions than male participants. This finding may indicate that such attitudinal differences between females and males occur as a result of transition to traditional gender roles.

Despite its limitations, my study emphasized two future directions for research. First, the relatively negative attitudes of non-parent college students toward older children’s interactions with imaginary companions are worthy of further study. If further research confirms similar negative attitudes toward older children, such findings may be employed in explaining the factors that contribute to the reasons why older children abandon their imaginary companions. Second, a more comprehensive study of the similarities and differences between non-parent college students and parents would be useful in that it would reveal to what extent college students can be used as a sample when studying parental attitudes in particular and adult attitudes in general.

Role Play

Pretend play was broken down into two subgroups: object substitution and role play. Role play was the focus of most of the lecture and subsequently is what I will be discussing. A large part of role play is the concept of an imaginary companion. It is often shown in television and movies that children with imaginary companions are the shy withdrawn individuals, while adults with imaginary companions are “crazy.” This portrayal in the media was shown to be wrong. Children with imaginary companions and role play in general tend to have higher verbal ability, creativity, extroversion, and executive functioning. Which of course, these findings make perfect sense; one would have to be quite creative to think up and imaginary friend and communicate with it. It is difficult for me to understand how role playing, particularly having an imaginary companion correlate to being more of an extrovert. It seems like this finding would be opposite. Playing with an imaginary friend or using role play all the time would appear to segregate you from other children, because you would be off in your own world.

During this lecture the question was raised as to whether or not children understood that their imaginary friends were not real, and that children could distinguish reality from fantasy. In lecture the conclusion was made, that yes, children do understand that role play, and their imaginary companions aren’t real. However, when testing this, it seemed like researchers depended on what the children said, whether or not they mentioned that it was all just pretend. They also relied on parent surveys. My thoughts are, that is if a child had an imaginary friend, the parent would constantly acknowledge the fact that they aren’t real, causing the child to start saying it as well. So, if a parent or an adult were to ask the child if their imaginary friend were real they would respond with the answer they were taught and told repeatedly, whether or not they believed it to be true. It seems that saying that their imaginary friend was real would produce a negative response from adults and their parents, so the say the answer that they know will get them a positive response. Children think that the characters they see on television are real, so it’s difficult for me to see how they would not think their own imaginary friends are real. I learned in my learning and memory class that the more a person thinks about an event, the more they can start to think it actually happened. Could the same be true for the concept of imaginary companions? The more a child thinks and interacts with their friend wouldn’t the lines between fantasy and reality become blurred?

Remembering That I Didn't Remember and a Little bit O' Imagination

This post is going to be a quick touch on two topics, the first being memory that has possibly been implanted then moving to an actual episodic memory that involves imagination. OK, so picture this, there is a blond slender 2-3 year old boy being carried by a woman with black permed out hair. The child is thrashing about and just looks completely freaked out screaming, "Help, Help, she's not my mommy!!!" The woman comely trys to leave the store to elevate the other shoppers of the crying kid.

I remember this event because I was the kid screaming. Well, I kind of remember this. OK, I remember the first time I heard this story about one of my experiences at Nordstrom's growing up. This story struck me as funny during our lecture on memory because I have no real recollection of the event, but have heard the story so many times that I can visually see things from the child's point of view. I can just picture the look on my mom's face as she takes me out of the store, I can smell the perfume that she would have been wearing at the time, etc...

Just like you said in class, after being told a story over and over you start to remember it. I don't doubt that this event happened or not, it seems like something I would have done (I'm actually kind of proud that I could string together such a meaning phrase at that age). It's just funny that I have such a vivid picture of the event. What really gets me are the questions that I ask myself when I think about it. Like when I described myself as a slender 2-3 year old. This part of the story just kind of happened a couple of years ago. No one told me that I was slender at the time I just kind of added it to the story. My question is, could the story be taking on a life of it's own, the addition of the perfume smell, and my mom's facial expression are examples of this, or is it possible that I have old memories creeping back to the surface when I remember/think about the event.

Well, part two of this blog starts out with my rabid love for the X-men comic book characters. Growing up I would spend summers with my cousins, either here in Oregon, Detroit Michigan, or Baton Rogue Louisiana. No matter where we were we "played" X-men. Each of us had a favorite character and would take on that persona (self as vehicle). I don't remember exactly how old I was at the time, but I'm thinking around 10 or so. Anyways we were at a River Rhythm's concert up in Albany.

Running jumping all over the place I ran smack into a classmate of mine. As I talked to her one of my cousins jumped from the bushes and said, "Lets go Gambit, I think Wolverine is in trouble", then he jumped back into the bushes and let out an agonizing scream like he was just attacked by something.

I remember Katie, just kind of looking at me and back to my cousin like we were frikin crazy. I can feel my embarrassed red face, hear the music, and smell the stands selling all sorts of foods. I can pick apart details just like I can when I think of the above mentioned story that has been implanted by others into my head. When I think of each event they both come up as a true memory. Yet I know for a fact that only the second is, because I remember the first time I heard the story of my calls for help.

What is it about our memories that make it impossible to tell what was real and what wasn't. I have such vivid images of both events I can see and smell, yet I question one of them. Kind of crazy how memories work for us.

The Rules We Follow

Kids take a long time to learn what is ok and not ok to do. Thinking about it, there are a lot of social rules that have to be learned. There’s what you’re supposed to say in different situations, do around different people, or how to be. Some of the rules are for children’s safety, such as don’t play in the street and don’t eat food off the floor, while others are to fit into general society, like don’t sit down next to someone on an empty bus and don’t swear in public.

An old roommate I had had a daughter who lived in the house with us. At the time my friends and I rented the house, she had just had her third birthday. My time living with her taught me a lot about dealing with little kids. She was a really rough-and-tumble little girl who like playing out in the backyard and bouncing around the living room, and she also had a real fondness for skirts. A social rule that she still hadn’t learned by the time I moved out a year later was that other people don’t want to see your underwear (at least, not any normal person, certainly no one in our house). She liked to lay on her back and kick her legs around, and all of us adults in the house told her every time that it wasn’t appropriate, but she really liked kicking her legs in the air. She certainly had no understanding of why this was not allowed, because she had no notion of what the adults around her thought of the situation, such as concerns of if a predator saw her doing this at the park. She just thought it was fun, while we were concerned for her safety out in the world.

Little kids don’t seem to have much concern for what adults place sexual meaning to. A lot of kids around two years old go through a naked phase. It isn’t to attract a mate, they have no idea about those things yet, it’s just another way to be. In other cultures without strong beliefs about the personal nature of one’s own nudity allow children to continue this, sometimes because it simply is not an issue, others because of basic economic and resource reasons. These children do not learn the same lesson of Western children to clothe themselves, but I’m sure that there are other lessons that they are taught that are not needed for urban, American children to adhere to.

It takes a long time to learn all the rules you need to follow to fit in normally. Just think about if you went to China, France, or Saudi Arabia. All the things that we think of as foreign are things that they have learned, and are all similar to the kinds of things that we leaned as children, in order to fit in and follow the rules.

I Think, Therefore I’m Alive?

Our textbook says that for something to be viewed as a uniquely biological process, a process must be viewed as depending not on psychological mechanisms or physical mechanisms, but on specifically biological mechanisms. This distinction between psychological and biological processes makes sense, but it’s something that I had never really thought about before – I assumed that the two went hand in hand. I hadn’t noticed that I had been making this distinction subconsciously (almost?) all my life until we identified humans and animals, but not plants, as mentalistic agents in class. It fascinated me.

When I was thinking about this, I realized how so many children’s shows, stories and toys utilize the personification of inanimate objects. Very often this is done by giving these inanimate objects morphological features and having them react contingently, which, as we learned, children use to identify mentalistic agents. Do children think of these much-loved characters, such as Lofty and Muck from Bob the Builder, as living creatures because they appear to have psychological processes? Or do they, as essentialists, know that Lofty and Muck, as a crane and bulldozer respectively, are really mechanical objects and are therefore nonliving although they appear to be mentalistic agents? In other words, can they and do they make this distinction between psychological and biological processes?

Six-month-olds don’t seem to make this distinction – they expect goal-directed movement from humans but not from inanimate objects, suggesting that they associate psychological mechanisms with biological mechanisms. From experience, it appears to me that children around the preschool age are convinced that these personified inanimate characters are alive. This seems consistent with probabilistic representations – being a mentalistic agent is a high cue validity for the “living object” concept. There is a slight shift in their understanding here though: instead of something having to be alive to be a mentalistic agent, something that is a mentalistic agent has to be alive. Notice that although there is this shift, children still don’t seem to make the distinction between psychological and biological mechanisms.

How do they go from this to understanding that Thomas the Tank Engine isn’t a live object, or that plants are not mentalistic agents, even if they are alive? We know they get there eventually (because we as adults make the distinction), so the question is at what age do they learn to make this distinction, and how?

It seems most likely to me that this change occurs along the lines of the explanation of the conceptual development that I put forth in my last blog post – when children get to school and learn about the underlying biological mechanisms that make something “alive”, they would then have defining features for what is alive and what isn’t. They would learn how being alive is more than being able to think, and how appearing to be able to think does not necessarily make something alive. In the same way they would also learn that one of the defining features of the “plant” concept is “not being a mentalistic agent”. They would then be able to make the distinction between the psychological and biological processes.

I wasn’t able to find any research in this area, so this hypothesis that children don’t make the distinction between psychological and biological mechanisms isn’t empirically based, and I’m sure there are other explanations for it too. It would be interesting to conduct research to shed some light on how and when we learn to make this inconspicuous but important distinction.