THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE AGE OF FIRST RECOGNITION AND FIRST EPISODIC REPORTS - LONGITUDINAL CASE-STUDIES

It is not exactly known why personal episodes from any time younger th an about four years of age (infantile amnesia) can rarely be recalled. Recently, some studies suggested that explicit memory would develop l ater than implicit memory. However, few studies so far showed how impl icit and explicit memory might develop. It is assumed that we could ra rely recall childhood, because explicit memory has not well developed before four years of age. In order to investigate such phenomenon, I e xamined by longitudinal studies of recognition and episodic reports, w hether the critical change would be observed around age four. The resu lts revealed the following three tendencies. First, the age of the fir st recognition might be after age three. Second, the age of the first episodic reports could be earlier than at the first recognition. And t hird, the age of first episodic reports might depend on the first spok en words, while the age of the first recognition neither on the first words nor on the first episodic reports. New ideas on memory developme nt in relation to language and consciousness have been suggested.