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Remembering the Times of Our Lives:
Memory in Infancy and Beyond

by Patricia J. Bauer
Erlbaum, 2007

Patricia Bauer is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Psychology and senior associate dean for research in Emory College. Her research focuses on the development of memory from infancy through childhood. She joined the Emory faculty in 2007.

Excerpt

“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never, never forget!”

“You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of it.”

—Lewis Carroll
   Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

In his brief dialogue between the King and the Queen—two of the chess piece sovereigns of the Looking Glass House— Lewis Carroll captured the complementary sides of the coin we term memory. The King. . .expresses absolute faith in the durability of memory. The Queen, in contrast, presents a less flattering view of the capacity: that without some intervention (a memorandum), even a salient event will be forgotten . . . Memory is at times seemingly indelible and at other times frustratingly fallible. What is more, in true looking glass fashion, the same past experience can at one moment impinge on consciousness unbidden and at another elude deliberate attempts to recollect it.

The phenomenon of memory—in its mercurial splendor— is the subject of this book. That said, on the first page of this volume, I have misled you (just as Alice is often misled). To say that this book is about memory is to imply that there is a single entity called memory. In fact, [t]here are many different types of memory and many ways that it can be divided. One common division is along a temporal dimension—some memories are short-term: they last only seconds. Other memories are of the sort anticipated by Lewis Carroll’s King: memories that are long-term and may even last a lifetime. . . .

Because time is not infinite, this book is not about all types of memory. Instead, it is about a particular type of memory, one near and dear to all of us—namely, autobiographical memory or personal memory[,] the memories of events and experiences that make up one’s life story or personal past. They are the events that we share as we get to know new people, as we reconnect with loved ones after long absences, or as we greet coworkers on Monday morning. . . .They are the stories that we use to convey to others the person we want them to see. Indeed it is not an overstatement to say [with psychologist Richard White] that “Recall of events is a phenomenon of crucial importance to humans. It is the basis of individuality: we are our memories. . . .”

To get to autobiographical memory requires that we consider the two major subtypes of declarative memory: semantic memory and episodic memory. Semantic memory supports general knowledge about the world. We are consulting semantic memory when we retrieve the fact that the capital of North Carolina is Raleigh, that the largest city in the state is Charlotte, and that in the month of August it is very hot in North Carolina. . . . Semantic memory is not tied to a specific event or time. We know that (a) birds fly; (b) elephants are a type of pachyderm; (c) despite their resemblance to fish, whales are mammals; and (d) the heart and the lungs work together. However, in most cases, we do not know when and where we learned this information. . . .

Episodic memory, in contrast, supports retention of information about unique events. Episodic memory is what permits us to remember that, earlier in the day, a downy woodpecker flew to the feeder, extracted a peanut, and flew off. . . . It supports memory for the time we went whale watching off the coast of San Diego. It is episodic memory that permits me to remember that I learned that “the heart and lungs work together” from Mr. Lakes, my fifth-grade science teacher at MacArthur Elementary School. . . .

I learned many other things in the fifth grade, yet I have a vivid memory of learning this particular fact and not others. This episode has stuck with me because of the reaction of Mr. Lakes to a challenge I put to him when he imparted to the class this fact. My challenge was, “If the heart and lungs work together, why doesn’t my heart stop when I hold my breath?” Mr. Lakes’ response was to the effect that I had asked a really good question and that I should become a scientist and find out why. This episode frequently comes to mind when I think about the forces that shaped my educational and career choices. In this regard, the episode is highly personal and autobiographical. It is this particular kind of episodic memory—namely, autobiographical memory—that is the primary subject of this volume.

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