【正文】 quantity.　　TPO10 – Lecture 4　　Narrator　　Listen to part ofa lecturein a Psychology Class.　　Professor　　OK. IfI ask about theearliest thing you can remember,Iwill bet for most of you,　　your earliest memorywould be about from age of 3, right?Well, that’s true for　　most adults. We cannot rememberanything that happened before age of 3.　　And thisphenomenon is so widespread and welldocumented it has a name. It　　is called child amnesia and it was first documented in 1893.　　As Isaid, this phenomenon refersto the adults not being able to remember the　　childhood incidents. It’s not children trying to remembereventsfrom last month　　or last years. Ofcourse you follow that if you can’t rememberincidents as your　　child, you probably won’t rememberas an adult. OK, so … why is this? What is　　the reason from the child amnesia? Well, once a popular explanation was that　　child memoriesare always repressed and memories aredisturbing so that is　　adults we keep themin barricade. And so we can recallthem and this is base　　on…wellit’s not base on, on, on… the kind of selfresearch in the lab testing　　we want to talkabout let’s put thatexplanation aside and　　concentrate on just ? Itcould be that as children we do form memories　　of things prior to age of 3, but forget as we get grew older,let’s one explanation.　　Another possibility is that children younger than 3 lack some cognitive capacity　　for that idea, that children are unable to form memories that have　　been the dominant beliefpsychology for the past 100 years. And thisidea is　　verymuch tied tothings, the theoryofJean Piaget and also to language　　development in children.　　So PRJ’s theoryof cognitive development PRJ’s suggested thatbecause　　theydon’t have language, children younger than 1824 monthsleave in the　　hereand now that is theylack the mean to symbolic represent object,and　　events,that will not physically getthat? PRJproposed　　that young children don’t have way to represent things that aren’t wide in front　　of ’s what language does, right? Words represent things, ideas.　　Once language started todevelop for about age 2, theydo has a system for　　symbolic representation and can talkabout things which arenot in there in　　immediate environment including thepast. Of course he didn’tclaim that　　infants don’t have any sort of memoryit is acknowledged that theycan　　recognizesome stimuli, like faces. And for many yearsthis model werevery　　much in favors in psychology,even thought memory tests werenever　　performed on young children.　　Well, finally in the 1980s, study was done. And this study show that veryyoung　　children under age of 2 do have capacityfor recall. Now if we children cannot talk, how was the recalltested? Well,that is a good question, since the　　capacityfor recall has always been linked with the ability to talk. So the　　researcherset up an experimentusing imitation based texts. The adults use　　probable toysor other objects to demonstrateaction that has 2 steps. The　　children were asked to imitate the stepsimmediatelyand then he again after　　lays off one or even after delay,the children could…couldn’t callor　　replicatethe action, the objectstheyused, and the stepsinvolved and the　　order ofthe steps. Even children young is 9 months, now,testshowed that　　therewas a faster way offorgetting among the youngest children but most　　importantly it shows that the development ofthe recalldid not depend on　　language development. And that was the importance finding. I guess I should　　add that thefindings, don’t say therewas no connection between the　　development of language and some ofevidence that are　　being able to talkabout the eventdoes lead to having a strong memoryofthat　　 that doesnot seem therealissue here.　　So, back to our question about the cause of the childhood amnesia, well, there　　is something called the rateof childhood amnesia may reflect　　high rateof forgetting,in other words, children under age of 3 do form memory　　and do so without language. But theyforget thememories at a fast rate,　　probably faster than adults do. Researcher has set standards….sort of　　unexpected rate offorgetting, but that expected ratewas set based on the　　testsdone on the adults. So what is the rateof forgetting for children under the　　age of 3? Weexpected to be high, but thetestsdisproved thesereally haven’t　　been done yet. 源于：小馬過河相關(guān)推薦：2012年11月18日托福寫作真題解析2012年11月18日托福口語真題解析2012年11月18日托福閱讀真題解析2012年11月18日托福聽力真題解析全國免費(fèi)咨詢電話：4000123267