Abstract
Keywords: Childhood memoriesearly childhood memoriesautobiographical memory
Introduction
In analysing the
For Adler, unconscious maladaptive processes are dynamically involved in revealing those contents stored in chronological, declarative memory (Miclea, 1999), thus accessible as autobiographical memory (Theiler, 2005). Bruhn (1985, 1990) combined the theory of
In a quantitative study reflecting the distribution of autobiographical memories during the first decade of life, Rubin (2000) collects a number of 10118 memories taken from previously published studies on American men and women (20-70 years). Only 1,1 % of the respondents noted memories before the age of 3, with a strong increase of the distribution of existent memories after that age. Female participants could have more memories from before the age of 4 as compared to males, however this difference was not significantly clear, as the initial studies did not include variability measures (Rubin, 2000). The model of the multiple system of autobiographical memory developed by David Rubin (Rubin, 2006; Rubin, Schrauf, & Greenberg, 2003) stipulates the fact that memories appear as a result of a number of
Qualitative recall of ECM seems to be conditioned by the perceptive sensorial characteristics (Brewer et al., 1999; Johnson & Raye, 1981), but also by the intensity of feeling (Hashtroudi, Johnson, & Chrosniak, 1990; Johnson, Foley, Suengas, & Raye, 1988). The age of 3.6 years represents the age from which adults appear to recount events before or after the birth of a younger sibling (Kihlstrom & Harackiewicz, 1982; Mullen, 1994; West & Bauer, 1999). Also, there are studies indicating that memories from before the age of 3,6 years are quite frequent (Eacott & Crawley, 1998; Usher & Neisser, 1993). Similarly, ECM from around the age of 2,4-3,5 years old appear to not differ qualitatively from the ones at 3,6-5,5 years old. Crawley & Eacott (2006) show that it is not unusual for subjects who remembered events from an age lower than 2.3 to believe that they relieved something from their past. Research performed upon autobiographical memory highlighted the prevalence of negative ECM over the positive ones, the phenomenon receiving the name of
The tendency to recall rather negative than positive information/ content was correlated with the genetic propensity to depression (Vrijsen et al., 2015). Literature indicates that the genotype which is prone to depression (polymorphism 5-HTTLPR of serotonin carrier) is associated with styles of processing negative information, specifically in cases of combination with traumatic events from childhood (e.g. loss of one parent) or interpersonal childhood traumatic events (e.g. physical/ mental or sexual abuse). Memory bias may influence the alteration of the recalled content by the so called
Early childhood
The theory of
Another characteristic taken over in a recent study was the
Problem statement
Research questions
In order to identify the mental mechanisms which lay the foundation of the explicit memory functioning, the means of recalling mnesic content from the early stage of existence, as well as the aspects mentioned in the mnesic recall process protocols reported in rather recent empirical studies, the following
Purpose of the study
The purpose of the study was to perform a systematic review of specialized literature from between 2000 and 2016, with respect to ECM and to identify the methods (as listed in the literature) for recalling early and very early memories.
Research Methods
The studies investigating the field of interest, namely early memories were identified by the usage of the following key words:
Potentially relevant studies were identified using the following search engines: Einformation, ANELiS (http://www.anelis.ro/) and AnelisPlus (http://www.anelisplus.ro/), securing free access to a wide range of scientific databases, such as: Cambridge Journals, Emerald Management Journals 200, ScienceDirect, Springer Link Journals, Wiley Blackwell, ProQuest Central, OVID LWW High Impact Collection, Oxford University Press, Emerald Group Publishing, American Institute of Physics, Taylor and Francis, EBSCO Academic Search Complete, EBSCO Business Source Complete, SAGE, Thomson ISI and SCOPUS, Reaxys Elsevier, ScienceDirect Freedom Collection Elsevier, Web of Science - Core Collection, Wiley Journals. We used the following search key words: "
The selection criteria for including the studies in the systematic review were the following: (1) Published articles in Romanian or English languages; (2) Published articles between 01.01.2000 – 31.12.2016; (3) The quality of being peer review journal articles, conference proceedings or dissertations, (4) Allowed access to full text. Initially, a number of 617 studies were identified, with a remaining number of 612 records after eliminating the duplicates. During the selection phase, out of a total number of 612 works 589 were excluded, leaving 23 full articles. In the eligibility checking phase, a total of 11 full-text articles were excluded, leaving 12 eligible studies to be included in the qualitative summary. The 11 articles were excluded due to the following reasons: they referred indirectly to the “early memories” component; they were correlated with other mental particulars from the pathology field, the subjects were children, the expression was used in other ancillary domains (medicine, psychiatry, neurology and genetics). The selection process is illustrated below in Figure

Findings
Partly, the review of specialized literature confirms the general assertions of Freud (2014) and Adler (2010) regarding
In some of the reviewed studies, psychologists find useful Adler’s projective method (2010), which starts from the simple question (flashback) ”
The presumptive conclusion is that the recovery of early memories should involve, favouring qualitative recall, the confirmation of details with the participation of those who were witnesses or subjects to the recalled event, which can be a really difficult undertaking to be performed in practice: 1) one of the persons directly or indirectly involved in the event may not be available for interview; 2) the mental state of some of these subjects/-witnesses may be impaired due to biological/ neurological reasons (old age).
Conclusion
This article used the
Literature emphasizes the fact that recalled early memory has a reference/ correlation relationship with the cognitive schemes of Young, Klosko & Weishaar (2003). The author elaborated the
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28 June 2018
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Cite this article as:
Dumitrache, D., & Rusu, A. S. (2018). Current Theories On Early Childhood Memories – A Systematic Review Of The Literature. In V. Chis, & I. Albulescu (Eds.), Education, Reflection, Development – ERD 2017, vol 41. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 43-52). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2018.06.5