Development Of Children's Autobiographcial Memory And Self-Consept And Their Relationship

Autobiographical memory is a type of memory that is concerned about oneself. As a "living" memory about one's daily life, autobiographical memory obviously contrasts to Ebbinghaus' "dead" memory studied in laboratory. With regard to the history of memory study, researches on autobiographical memory have a relative longer history than systematic studies, which only last a few decades. At present, studies of autobiographical memory have attracted wide attention from developmental psychologists. And theoretical researches concerned about emergence and subsequent development of autobiographical memory have an unprecedented rise. Researchers put forward and systematically discussed their theories concerned about emergence and subsequent development of autobiographical memory. Although they have not agreed with each other about such as the age of children's emergence of autobiographical memory, they all emphasized the vital effects of self development in emergence and subsequent development of autobiographical memory.As an "extended self", autobiographical memory is an important experience in one's long-term memory. And self description is an explicit representation of one's self-concept. Self-concept affects one's coding, organization and retrieval of autobiographical memory. And autobiographical memory provides support of dynamic development of self-concept. Self-concept is of the most vital in development of autobiographical memory. Although it is indicated that self is important in children's development of autobiographical memory in theories of emergence and subsequent development of autobiographical memory, there is not enough experimental evidence. And most of studies are cross-cultural comparative study. Therefore, this study attempts to explore development of children's autobiographical memory and self-concept and their relationship in the same culture. The author interviews 81 children with three parts. In the first part, subjects ask children two questions to make them recall their short-term memories and earliest memories. And in the second part, subjects ask children to describe themselves spontaneously with writing task. And in the third part, the author analyzes the relationship of children's autobiographical memory and self-concept. Finally, the author finds that:(1) Children's autobiographical memory including memory volume, number of others and interaction scenario develops with age. (2) Total scores and many aspects of children's self description develop with age. Though there is no remarked difference in relation self and positive self evaluation, the trend of them is rising with age.(3) The relationship of children's autobiographical memory and self-concept is remarkable.