Remembering the Times of Our Lives

"What do children remember about their lives? Why do they seem to forget so much and yet also show evidence of being affected by early experiences? In this book, Patricia Bauer draws on a wide range of evidence to tell a compelling scientific detective story concerning what we know (so far) about these questions. The book is beautifully written, well-organized, and analytically probing, and yet at the same time reflective, literate, and absorbing."—Nora S. Newcombe, Ph.D., Professor, Temple UniversityThis masterly treatment of how memory develops is the most comprehensive and scholarly work on this subject available anywhere. It should be the authoritative reference for years to come as well as a wonderful source of information for anyone interested in what infants can learn, how they learn it, and what they can remember later. —Larry R. Squire, Ph.D., UCSD and Veterans Affairs Medical Center"Patricia Bauer has written a timely, valuable, and highly readable integration of perspectives on the development and character of autobiographical memory. She masterfully combines evidence from the cognitive psychology of autobiographical memory in adults with that from developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience into a novel synthesis that elucidates the course of cognitive development. Furthermore, she combines the data from experimental analyses of memory with its function in the social and cultural context in which it is naturally expressed, making the story entertaining and crossing the boundaries between laboratory science and real life. All these threads are brought together in a fascinating account of the transition from infancy, characterized by forgetting of the experiences of a developing mind, to adulthood as characterized by a growing reliance on remembering our personal past."—Howard Eichenbaum, Ph.D., Director, Center for Memory and Brain, Boston University

• Contents: Part I: Autobiographical Memory and Its Significance. Remembering the Times of Our Lives. Autobiographical Memory in Adults. Infantile or Childhood Amnesia. Part II: Memory in Infancy and Very Early Childhood. Declarative Memory in the First Years of Life. The Neural Bases of Declarative Memory in Adults. Development of the Neural Substrate for Declarative Memory. Part III: Autobiographical Memory in Childhood. Event and Autobiographical Memory in the Preschool Years. "What Develops" in Preschoolers' Recall of Specific Past Events? The Context of Autobiographical Memory Development. Part IV: The "Fates" of Early Memories. Crossing the Great Divides of Childhood Amnesia. The Shifting Balance of Remembering and Forgetting.