This research focuses on Ainfantile amnesia@, a finding that adults recall significantly less information prior to about age 4 than immediately thereafter. Many hypotheses have been proposed for this phenomenon focusing on developmental advances between early and middle childhood including the impact of language acquisition, development of self-awareness, memory processing advances, and simple memory decay over time. The current study is examining both 3-5 year olds and adults recalling memories from this early period to compare type and amount of information reported. Results thus far indicate that, while adults= remembrances from this age period are poor, children=s recall is notably worse, which suggests unrealistically that event memory improves over time. These findings emphasize the considerable impact of schematic knowledge development in understanding and retaining previously experienced events.

  (Dr. Atlas)

  (Dr. Gagne)

  Perspectives on Euthanasia (Dr. Walker)

  (Dr. Maiden)