The Development of Event and Autobiographical Memory in Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

The overview present in this chapter shows that our understanding of the development of autobiographical memory has improved considerably during the past three decades. It becomes obvious that event memory in general, and more specifically eyewitness memory, belong to the most investigated areas in cognitive development lately. Numerous studies have not only illustrated that even young children can memorize salient events for a long time, but they have also identified important sources of development and individual differences. This impressive research program has also helped in evaluating traditional perspectives and in producing new hypotheses concerning the infantile amnesia phenomenon, which has been discussed in the literature for more than 100 years. Although we still do not completely understand this phenomenon, there is reason to assume that several factors have significantly contributed to offsetting it, such as the development of the cognitive self and the beginning of verbal mother–child dialogues about children’s experiences.