U NDERSTANDING E VERYDAY M EMORY F AILURES I N C HILDREN “Honey, did you remember to do your homework?”: Understanding Everyday Memory Failures in Children and Their Parents This study was designed to explore memory failures in children and their parents, specifically, the personal events involved in memory and memory failures and to what extent children and adults realize what they have forgotten. Since previous research in this domain has focused mainly on adult’s or children’s ability to recall past events, few have ventured to investigate what underlies the process of forgetting for everyday events in parents and children, and if a link exists between the two. Such research is necessary if tools and methods to improve and support memory across the life-span, are to be developed. Survey data pertaining to self-reported memory failures along with information on the amount of interaction between parents and children was collected at a local elementary school. The results show that children and parents were more likely to report failure in prospective memory (forgetting to do something) than retrospective memory (forgetting something they already knew). Additionally, when asked what they thought had caused the failure, children were more likely to attribute the lapse to external distractions. Finally, the data showed that the degree of parent-child interaction was significantly related to the detail provided in a child’s reported memory failures. Results are discussed in the context of developing a better understanding of, and suggest future avenues for, research in memory and memory failures in children, as well as understanding the relation between parent/child memory. Megan L. Howard, B.S. Stephen M. Fiore, Ph.D. Florian Jentsch, Ph.D. University of Central Florida Key Terms: memory failure, life-span, children, recall, autobiographical The ability to re-experience one’s own personal history is due to a hypothetical memory system called episodic memory, which makes “mental time travel” possible (Tulving, 2002). Through episodic memory, autobiographical memory (AM) emerges as experiencing explicit recollections of past events and episodes in an individual’s past (Sutton, 2002), providing a sense of continuity and identity of the self from the past to the future (Nelson, 2003). This study will explore this subset of AM - episodic memory (and more specifically, memory failures) - in children, and what links exist between the parent’s and child’s memory. Children’s Autobiographical Memory Children as young as 6 months can recall information associated within a specific context, and can experience AM as well as store, retrieve, and communicate a basic past experience as early as age 2 (Docherty & Sandelowski, 1999; Howe & Courage, 1993;), but the child’s “sense of self” and capability to reflect on their past does not occur until sometime around age 4 (Levine, 2004; Nelson, 2003; Saxe, 2004; Suddendorf, 1997; Tulving, 2002). This is most likely due to the approximate milestone age when the child’s “neurocognitive machinery” is thought to develop thoroughly enough to integrate their past events into the self so they learn to refer to the past as the past, and organize their memories autobiographically by associating the personal memory with their own feelings at that time (James, 1890; Perner & Ruffman, 1995). By means of AM, children begin to understand self- reflection, planning, meta-representation, mental attribution, learning from their past mistakes, and predicting consequences (Suddendorf, 1997; Tulving, 2002). Link between Children’s and Parent’s Memory Parents typically begin to talk with their children about their memories and narrate about their experiences (using personal pronouns such as “you” and “me”) when the children are around 2 ½ years old. This is thought to contribute to children beginning to learn the narrative ways of formulating their stories about themselves, ultimately building up their AM (Docherty & Sandelowski, 1999; Reich, 1986;). Parents also reinforce and further their children’s cognitive development by naturally setting the example of generic scripts in their daily lives. A script is understood by the child once a given event has occurred repeatedly, and the child begins to store and retrieve the event as a script. This allows the memory to be easier to understand as a whole, so children see the script as how things “usually happen” C OGNITIVE T ECHNOLOGY ● V OLUME 11 ● I SSUE 1 ● S PRING 2006 36