Making memories together: The influence of mother-child joint encoding on the development of children's autobiographical memory style.
Item
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Title
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Making memories together: The influence of mother-child joint encoding on the development of children's autobiographical memory style.
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Identifier
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AAI9119684
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identifier
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9119684
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Creator
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Tessler, Minda.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Katherine Nelson
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Date
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1991
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Developmental
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Abstract
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The fundamental proposition guiding this study was that autobiographical memory is a particularly social form of memory, developed through adult-child interactions in which children internalize a particular style of attentional and representational processing, or encoding, and dialogically influenced form of recall.;Examining the influence of maternal style on 48 4-year-old children's subsequent talk about a joint mother-child picturetaking experience, the first major hypothesis tested was that the maternal style was not situation-specific but rather a consistent attribute to which children could be expected to have been exposed over time. The second major hypothesis was that children's exposure to this style would influence the development of their own in the same direction. Children's preference for subsequent reconstructive talk by the experimenter in the style of their mothers rather than in a different style would be taken as evidence for such an influence and as support for the hypothesis of a social-interactive effect on the development of this form of memory.;The experiment was carried out over three sessions. The first consisted of a joint picturebook reading to assess maternal style, characterized as Narrative or Paradigmatic, followed by the picturetaking experience. Between the first two sessions, children were subdivided into 4 groups, consisting of 12 children in each, based on maternal style. At Session 2, two groups received reconstructive talk in the maternal style (a Narrative/Narrative and a Paradigmatic/Paradigmatic group) and two groups received reconstructive talk in the opposite style (a Narrative/Paradigmatic and a Paradigmatic/Narrative group). At Session 3, three weeks later, all the children received cues in both formats, from a different experimenter.;Maternal style was consistent across the picturebook reading and the picturetaking experience. Children showed a preference for their mothers' style, to the extent that even children receiving talk in the opposite style "reformatted" it into the style to which they were most accustomed. A strong cohesion in the mother-child talk, characterized as "joint encoding," was proposed as the major vehicle for the transmission of the maternal influence.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
