Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

4-25-2025

Keywords

ability to recall, blooming buzzing confusion, Carolyn Rovee-Collier, child, conjugate reinforcement, empirical perspective, immature neural mechanisms, infant, infantile amnesia, infancy, impoverished sense of self, language skills, mental abilities, recall, repression, research contributions, sexual urges, 20th century

Disciplines

Child Psychology | Cognitive Psychology | Developmental Psychology

Abstract

Until the second half of the 20th century, the ability to recall information was thought to emerge between 2- and 10-years-of-age. Resulting from repression of our earliest sexual urges, immature neural mechanisms, or an impoverished sense of self and linguistic skills, infantile amnesia represents the predominant view of infancy at the time; a period in which the child possessed remarkably limited mental abilities, thus experiencing the world as nothing more than “one great blooming, buzzing confusion” (James, 1890). The research contributions of Dr. Carolyn Rovee-Collier over the next seventy years succeeded in altering this perspective.

Download

Share

COinS