評論
打印
Narrator:Listen to part of a lecture in a Psychology Class.
獨白:聽下面一部分的心理學課程講座
Professor:OK. If I ask about the earliest thing you can remember, I will bet for most of you, your earliest memory would be about from age of 3, right?
教授:好了，如果我問大家最早記事是在什么時候，我猜你們多數人都會說 3 歲左右，對嗎？
Well, that's true for most adults.
多數成年人確實如此。
We cannot remember anything that happened before age of 3.
3 歲之前的事情我們基本都不記得。
And this phenomenon is so widespread and well-documented it has a name.
這種現象太普遍且證據充足，因此它還有一個名字。
It is called child amnesia and it was first documented in 1893.
它被稱為兒童健忘癥，而且在 1893 年文獻中首次記載。
As I said, this phenomenon refers to the adults not being able to remember the childhood incidents.
正如我剛才所說，這種現象指的是成年人不能夠想起孩子的事情。
It's not children trying to remember events from last month or last years.
而不是說兒童試圖回憶上個月或者是過去幾年的事情。
Of course you follow that if you can't remember incidents as your child, you probably won't remember as an adult.
當然了，如果說你們小時候也記不得，長大后就更不能記得了。
OK, so…why is this? What is the reason from the child amnesia?
那么，為什么會這樣呢？兒童健忘癥的原因是什么呢？
Well, once a popular explanation was that child memories are always repressed and memories are disturbing so that is adults we keep them in barricade.
曾經一個流行的解釋是兒童的記憶受到抑制和干擾，因為我們成年后回憶起來會有障礙。
And so we can recall them and this is based on…well it's not base on, on, on… the kind of self-research in the lab testing we want to talk about today.
我們能夠回憶起來這些事情，但是要建立在…不能建立在…我們今天要講的是在實驗室中自主研發的測試。
So let's put that explanation aside and concentrate on just two.
我們先不講這個，就集中說說以下兩點。
OK? It could 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.
可能我們在 3 歲之前的階段確實也形成了記憶，但是在我們長大的過程中就慢慢遺忘了，這是一種解釋。
Another possibility is that children younger than 3 lack some cognitive capacity for memory.
還有一種可能就是 3 歲以下的孩子缺乏記憶認知能力。
And that idea, that children are unable to form memories that have been the dominant belief psychology for the past 100 years.
而在過去的 100 年中，這種兒童不能形成記憶的想法，一直在心理學界獲得廣泛認可。
And this idea is very much tied to things, the theory of Jean Piaget and also to language development in children.
這種想法和事物與讓·皮亞杰的理論以及孩子們語言的發展都有很大關聯。
So PRJ's theory of cognitive development-PRJ's suggested that because they don't have language, children younger than 18-24 months leave in the here and now that is they lack the mean to symbolic represent object, and events, that will not physically presented.
讓·皮亞杰提出由于 18-24 個月以下的孩子不會說話，那么就缺乏表示物體，以及那些無法用實體呈現的事件的記憶符號。
Everybody get that?
大家都明白了嗎？
PRJ proposed that young children don't have way to represent things that aren't wide in front of them.
讓·皮亞杰提出兒童沒有辦法呈現那些并沒有展現在他們面前的事物。
That's what language does, right?
這就是語言的功能了，對嗎？
Words represent things, ideas.
詞匯可以形容事物、想法。
Once language started to develop for about age 2, they do has a system for symbolic representation and can talk about things which are not in there in immediate environment including the past.
一旦語言在兒童 2 歲左右開始發育的時候，他們就有了能一套符號系統，而且能立即說出不在場的東西，也包括過去的事物。
Of course he didn't claim that infants don't have any sort of memory it is acknowledged that they can recognize some stimuli, like faces.
當然他沒有說嬰兒沒有任何記憶，大家都知道嬰兒可以認知一些刺激物體，如人的長相。
And for many years this model were very much in favors in psychology, even though memory tests were never performed on young children.
這種模式在心理學界一直都被廣泛認可，盡管沒有在孩子身上進行過任何試驗。
Well, finally in the 1980s, study was done.
在 20 世紀 80 年代，研究終于結束了。
And this study show that very young children under age of 2 do have capacity for recall.
研究顯示 2 歲一下的孩童有回憶的能力。
Now if we children cannot talk, how was the recall tested?
既然孩子那時候還不能說話，那么試驗是怎么進行的呢？
Well, that is a good question, since the capacity for recall has always been linked with the ability to talk.
這是個好問題，因為回憶的能力總是與語言能力相關聯。
So the researcher set up an experiment using imitation based texts.
所以研究者就用模擬測試進行了實驗。
The adults use probable toys or other objects to demonstrate action that has 2 steps.
成人用適當的玩具或者其他的物體來進行演示，包括兩個步驟。
The children were asked to imitate the steps immediately and then he again after lays off one or month.
要求孩子們立即來模仿這些步驟，然后過了一個多月，
And even after delay, the children could…couldn't call or replicate the action, the objects they used, and the steps involved and the order of the steps.
甚至是更久，孩子們就不能想起來并展示了，包括使用的物體、演示的步驟及順序。
Even children young is 9 months, now, test showed that there was a faster way of forgetting among the youngest children but most importantly it shows that the development of the recall did not depend on language development.
實驗證明，現在甚至是 9 個月大的孩子也有種更快的遺忘方式，但更重要的是，實驗顯示兒童不是根據語言發育來回憶的。
And that was the importance finding.
但是還有一項重大的發現，
I guess I should add that the findings, don't say there was no connection between the development of language and memory. There are some of evidence that are being able to talk about the event does lead to having a strong memory of that event.
我想我該提及一下，不能說語言發育和記憶沒有關聯。有證據顯示，有能力去講一個事件會加強記憶。
But that does not seem the real issue here. So, back to our question about the cause of the childhood amnesia, well, there is something called the rate of forgetting.
但是問題并不在這兒。好了，再回到兒童健忘癥的緣由這個話題上來，有一種說法叫遺忘率。
And childhood amnesia may reflect high rate of forgetting, in other words, children under the age of 3 do form memories and do so without language.
兒童健忘癥可能就是遺忘率的一種體現。換言之，三歲以下的孩子能夠形成記憶，而且與語言沒有關系。
But they forget the memories at a fast rate, probably faster than adults do.
但是他們遺忘的速度很快，很可能比成人快。
Researcher has set standards….sort of unexpected rate of forgetting, but that expected rate was set based on the tests done on the adults.
研究人員設立了一個標準，一種意料之外的遺忘率，但是我們能想到的遺忘率是基于成人測試基礎上形成的。
So what is the rate of forgetting for children under the age of 3?
那么三歲以下的孩子的遺忘率是多少呢?
We expected to be high, but the tests disproved these really haven't been done yet.
我們認為會很高，但能夠反駁這個觀點的測試目前還沒有進行過。
