Isles of Scion

To whom it may Concern:

Since I find myself at a loss for who exactly I’m supposed to contact about my experiences and my situation I’ve decided to chronicle as best I can the circumstances of my first (and hopefully not last) 3 quarters at Western Washington University. I’m 100% certain there are things I’ve forgotten, this has been one journey that only The Brain would be able to accurately chronicle without unintentional omissions.

If this does not apply to you, I would ask kindly that you please send it to whoever it does concern. If you aren’t able to do anything but are interested in a unique experience I invite you as well. I also greatly apologize for sending this to all of you at once, especially Mr. Singletary who had to drudge through a similar email a while back, I know that mass mail cheapens it however I have had many experiences where I receive no response so I felt that if I got all of you that someone would see it. I appreciate even the time it took you to make it to this line, I realize your time could be spent far more productively (and I’m certain that it is).

Thanks to all who read this and I hope that this summer will be spent fruitfully for all of us.

—

The Beginning

I came to Western for a short list of reasons. My girlfriend of 4 years has been the major reason, she has caused me to accomplish things that judging from my accomplishments since the 6^th grade (certain events happened) have been, to put it modestly, bleak. With her pushing me and me attempting to discover just who the heck I am I decided to go to Community College. For those of you who think otherwise I would like to inform you right now, Community College is just high school except that you can get a Degree instead of a Diploma. That’s it, unless you consider the lower drama levels to be an academic change.

After my two years of average success I applied for Western. I picked Western, as I said before, for a short list of reasons. The first is already named, the second was far less long lasting but equally involving. It was the view of the water from the little boardwalk-like area next to the PAC. It was a view that stunned me and I decided that it was just the kind of place I’d like to be. The tour as well seemed to drill into our head that this was a campus of change, that it wasn’t your generic ‘drink-till-you-drop’ school.

So I applied and was accepted. My determination to succeed and hopes for a new experience were quite high. For the first time academically I felt like I could succeed, which as I mentioned is definitely a new feeling. This feeling I would soon find out, can be crushed as easily as it can be created. I was placed in gamma stack 4 on the second floor. For those of you keeping score that means I was on stack 42X (X being whatever number you like, 0 seemed to be the floor favorite). Need proof?

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7668986321 or for those pleased with just pictures: http://islesofscion.net/420andfriends.jpg | http://islesofscion.net/bringalchol.jpg

When that group first appeared on my facebook news I immediately joined, I hoped that they would make posts about their parties and I could preemptively prepare. But I’m getting ahead of myself, we’ll return to that in a few moments. As I was saying I was in gamma stack 4, Floor 2. While I realized that I was under random assignment, I had the general assumption that I was with people that matched at least one criterion from my application. Apparently they did, they were male. That however is where the similarities between whom I best work with and who they were ended.

To begin we cite my roommate who said that everyone in the floor besides me was under 21. I’m immediately concerned because I was once under 21 and everyone I knew at that time was either an idiot or on their way to becoming one. Now that’s not to say everyone was, just everyone I knew. All my friends had decided that drinking was the way to win in life and so did their friends and it goes on some stereotypical snowball to the bottom of that hill. My immediate characterization of my roommates was spot on. In fact in the first week they were already getting so drunk that I could hear a chorus of vomiting in the bathroom during all hours of the morning followed by ‘Oh man! I’ll never do this again!’ It was funny the first 5 times I heard it from the same person but after that it quickly lost its humor. However there is something special about alcohol, which I’ve learned from this quarter is not unique to this area, that specialty is that people who drink, especially at this level, are prone to other wonderful traits. In this case I was on a floor that was comprised of two kinds of people, those who smoke, and those who smoke profusely. Cigarettes, Hookah, Marijuana, and anything else that could possibly light and give you a buzz was smoked with the utmost ferocity on an ever increasing basis.

At first I figured it was a fluke, I told them that I’m very sensitive to smells and that I have a bad heart and that I’d appreciate if they could at the very least put a towel down or something. They all seemed like nice people. Somewhere around this time I also grabbed a job at the green coats, I had to create income to cover myself for the atrocious cost of parking (something that could become a story in itself but I don’t want to go down that road). The job was from 11-2 (that’s 2am) one week on and one week off; I figured that if I just went to sleep after my job I’d be fine.

I was making a gross assumption about my situation if I thought I’d actually get to sleep however. As was reported every single day I went into work, you know that job where my co-workers are campus police. I complained that I had the world’s worst roommates. In fact it only got worse with each passing week. I’d leave my room and come home to either smoke and incense, the smell of weed, the smell of weed with incense, the smell of vomit and incense, the smell of vomit, weed, and incense; or the weird cocktail of weed, alcohol, vomit, and incense. It was a smell that I wish I could take a photo of; if I could have I imagine it would have been the most horrifying thing ever witnessed in the entirety of mankind. I sometimes would open a window only to be greeted by those same suitemates who were now at the bottom of my window, at the stairs (which comes into the window), or outside my door smoking cigarettes like it would win them money. So I had to choose between the vomit cocktail and cigarettes at that point. In all situations I would bring up to my suitemates that I was not enjoying the environment and that I would like them to change, in one week alone I asked them not to smoke outside my door 5 separate times.

However I quickly realized two things, that being a new student to a college and having a new professor do not mix, and the second was that addicts really don’t give a patootie (I like that word) what you think or feel, they’ll say they are sorry and just keep doing it. So I reported it to my RA. In fact I spent the entire first quarter complaining off and on to my RA and the campus police, as well as fellow green coats. I’d tell them before hand when I had overheard plans for parties, and the startling fact that if you hear bass from the street at 12 am (which in itself should of gotten an RA to their door’she was two floors above us) then they are covering up the incessant laughter that comes from being in a weed/alcohol stupor. I cannot earnestly say that there was no response from the authorities or RA’s. There were two times when people actually came and confronted them. However, and I warned them about this, if you come to just one door they’ll flee to another room. I mean its 7 to 1 in this situation, they are all friends with similar agenda’s so they’ll work to keep each other out of trouble. In both cases I learned another fun fact about my room. My door lock to the bathroom didn’t work.

The first time I didn’t realize it was the lock per say, I figured I had accidentally left it unlocked. A gangly white male with a carrot top afro (I wish I was making that up) ran into my room with what had to be the largest bong that has ever been used in a dorm. He held it at about waist level and it easily came up to his nose, had it not been used for marijuana I imagine it would have made for a very nice decorative lamp. The second time was with the RA’s when an unusually drunk fellow came running into my room with a beer, the fear in his face telling me that he wasn’t quite old enough for said beer. I told him to leave and he told me ‘just a second dude!’ After being a little more confrontational he finally went out my door. That time however I watched the lock fly out of the hole and realized that I had a bum door. I decided that I would apply to have that fixed because frankly I don’t want crazies running into my room. If there are two staff members here that deserve immense praise, it is Huan and whoever is the miracle worker behind fixerups. The fact that Huan could clean our bathroom (which I’ll describe soon) without quitting is enough to win him a medal, plus the treatment he received from some students here caused me to fight the urge to become confrontationally verbal with them and the speed for which the mechanic here gets jobs done is something that you’d generally only expect from an epic level rogue. He’s got the foot speed of a dire wolf and he’s obviously not afraid to use it. But I’m digressing’

The door was fixed promptly, however I hadn’t taken one small factor into the equation of locks. They don’t work if people don’t use them. My roommate, as nice as he was, was obviously born in a barn or at least a home that didn’t have any doors. He would leave anything that could be opened open. I wouldn’t mind this as much if I hadn’t brought all of my earthly possessions to this campus (I have nowhere else to take them), and I didn’t feel like being looted. During my rounds at north campus I found myself counseling people who had been recently pilfered by strangers the first time they left their doors even cracked which is sad considering their rooms are already inside of locked buildings.

However no amount of conversation, to this day stopped him from leaving it unlocked. Which lead to me coming home from work on one occasion to 3 people, who I had never met and never saw again, moments away from lighting up a hookah in the middle of my floor. For those of you playing the home game that’s right beneath my smoke alarm. I asked them something akin to ‘What the hell are you doing?!’ and they told me they weren’t about to light it, lest I notice the lighter and people in a pow-wow around it. They left my room apologizing the entire time and that was that.

What, to my best recollection, happened about a week after was what really put me over the edge with distrust. I came home to find my bed completely deflated, my bed by the way was a present from my girlfriends parents, since I have troubles sleeping they figured it would help, not only however was this bed deflated by my pillow had been swapped with my roommates. Not only was it swapped but my pillow cover was taken. I’m not sure what drug you have to do to steal a pillow cover’but I’m pretty sure it is expensive. To top this off they had broken the bed. Inflatable beds are not cheap and now I had one that couldn’t hold air for more than a few hours because someone decided that an unlocked door means free time.

I’m pretty sure that it was around this time that I contacted Charb. The reasoning was two-fold. By now I had contacted the police and RA’s at least 12 times. Of those 12 times, only 3 times involved people actually showing up and 1 of those times nothing was even attempted. I can even recall one time where I called and left a message for the RA on duty before I went to work at 11, and never got a call back. I figured that Charb, considering his first name matched mine, would be a great person to go to. He was initially fantastically quick. He immediately crashed one of their parties and told them that if it ever happened again that they’d all be screwed out the kazoo (probably a lot more eloquently than that’I wasn’t there I just heard the tale). Austin, who I might devote a paragraph to, was the one who took the brunt of the conflict and he proclaimed he’d never drink or smoke again. It seemed to work, in fact for 3 days all was very’very quiet. During this quiet period a secondary suggestion of Charb’s was that I move. I couldn’t do this for a few reasons, most important of which were the facts that I wasn’t sure why the only student playing by the rules was the one being told to pack up and move and secondly if my current situation had 7 out of 7 people all being drugged up’what are the odds moving will help me? On top of that I was able to sleep and I felt that I’d be able to make it. However by the 4^th day after they were drinking, blaring music until well beyond quiet hour, and smoking till there was a fog in the bathroom. While I’m still not sure how my smoke alarm wasn’t going off, I know they had all theirs covered in plastic, which was another note I had given to the campus authorities on at least two occasions during my stay as a green coat.

During this time I was taking a class with a new professor here, his name was Aaron Scheerin. It was on a topic that really interested me, Behavioral Neuroscience. However my large mistake was being in the test group for a professor. Our first test was the most complicated thing I had ever experienced, in fact during it there were people crying. I’m quite an emotional fellow myself but I didn’t think it was that bad. That is till I got my grade back. I was sitting on a 34% on the first test; in fact most of the class either failed or nearly failed it. It was so bad in fact that he gave us a gift. ‘If you do better on the final than on the first test I will drop the first test. Just stick with it.’ So we nearly all did. To summarize the events of his class quickly and move on to other things. I stuck with it; I tried my hardest and felt I might be able to do it. I took the final and apparently did so poorly on the final that I got a D- in the class. I attempted to contact the professor who immediately took grades off blackboard at the end of the quarter to find out what my grade was. He’s quite an elusive fellow, I only saw him one more time between that class and finding out that he went off to Microsoft. In between that time I heard dozens of stories that were almost identical to mine. I’m pretty certain if you interviewed every student that had taken his class you’d get most of them telling you my experience. However unlike most students, I am a transfer student. That D- has single handedly put me into a difficult spot that has only been intensified by the events of this paper.

Back to my living situation, as the parties became more frequent I was beginning to notice something mysterious popping up frequently in the bathroom. Mysterious puddles were forming all over the place. It took all of a weekend to realize what it was when I heard the drunken laughs of a suitemate, Austin, urinating on the floor in the bathroom. In fact when it appeared that he couldn’t top the toilet covered in urine and vomit, surrounded by even more urine (Beer is amazing in this respect I must say), he decided to prove me wrong. In the middle of the night he got out of his bed after a long stupor, turned to his bed and began to relieve himself. He also took the time to gun for his Hookah which I feel is a victory for me. I think that was about the time they stopped using it, unfortunately that was FAR into the quarter.

However while he was easily the most annoying person I’ve met in my life, he decided to drop out of college for the Army after realizing that drinking all night and skipping class doesn’t really create a good regimen for learning. Last I heard now he works at Circuit City/Best Buy (one of the two) and he still frequently visited the dorm to show his friends how a real man seemingly tries to get alcohol poisoning.

Once he left and I got decimated in my classes the first quarter here I decided that I would do better. I figured that he would be gone and that life would finally start going my way with this whole college thing. However I was to be receiving a fun call from my father in Maryland (for some reason my mail was being sent to him, I got that settled quickly) who told me the campus was putting me on probation and that I had to do such and such or I was a goner. This was a real booster for him since he didn’t save any money for me to go to college, he (much like me at the time) didn’t expect me to make anything of myself. If ever there was a Christmas present to remember, I definitely will remember that one.

I came back stunned, surprised that of the 7 people on my floor. The only guy who wasn’t committing a veritable novel’s worth of crimes almost nightly was the one that was being threatened to expulsion. At first the quarter started off quietly, Austin was gone and I figured I’d have a new chance at a quieter more college like living situation. The entire reason I came into Ridgeway was that it was a walk away from campus, I wish they’d of informed us sooner that it is nicknamed ‘The Jungle’ because of how wild and how common the parties are here. Oh, update, to those of you that didn’t know’that is literally the nickname of this place. However I didn’t factor in that with new loan money comes more drugs. I’m not quite sure how they could afford to smoke every single day, but I can assume that if you pool everyone’s money together you have quite a fund to work from. Also take into account that there were actual drug deals going down off of this same floor and it becomes reasonable to understand how they are funding it.

During this quarter I met with a multitude of people. From Academic advising, to what apparently is Academic advising but on a higher floor than the first floor (I forget what the difference was), to even a counselor. I found myself for the first time in a half decade breaking down and I was trying to find someone. However my greatest disability is that I’m a writer, an irony considering I failed every English class from basically 7^th grade on (failed or passed by the skin of my teeth), but I’m a writer in two senses of the word. Who I am on paper and who I am in person are greatly different, the things I’m telling you now would put me into too much of a panic in words for me to even finish. Whenever I talk about my problems I feel like I’m going to implode onto myself, which is exactly why I don’t. Whenever I speak with people I smile and do my best to ignore my issues, it has worked. Each person I met I tried my best to explain my situation; each person in kind consoled me and said that it was definitely a terrible situation. However not once was I directed to who could fix it, I know in the ideal world everyone knows where to go and when to go, but unfortunately it’s not the ideal world.

I break down easily in real conflict, I have simple answers to complex problems and that generally doesn’t work for people. I was put through Tae Kwon Do for two reasons when I was younger, my doctor was seriously concerned about the condition of my heart and the likelihood of my surviving and my parents felt that it would open me up. It did both, however it unfortunately only strengthened my distaste for conflict. The combat that was had when I trained was one between friends and by the end of it you felt far better than before. In the battle of me trying to adjust to this new world I was losing quickly, and a long lost sense of hopelessness was setting in.

I think the reason it has been so hard has been the general grimness of responses I get from people in the academic judgment. I generally got responses from emails about things like a late withdrawal request, which involved a professor getting our first test, which was worth 40% of our grade, in two weeks later than he promised which was one week later than the W date. The response I got from the email was. ‘It is not our responsibility to track professors. Your request is denied.’ No ‘thanks for your time’, no ‘unfortunately”, nothing. It was cold and calculated. I felt more so at that point than ever that I was already targeted.

I’m not certain if I was effected or not by the constant smoking. I do know however that I have had the worst difficulties of my life trying to concentrate since I moved to this dorm, I also had for the first quarter an issue with staying awake (it’s difficult when you get only 3-4 hours of sleep on most nights), and my ability to retain information has been skewed. I learned in biopsychology that 40-50% of marijuana’s chemical agent (THC) is released through side stream smoke and exhaled into the air. Considering that it was a common situation for me to come home and see a fog in my room (I’m still not quite certain why my smoke alarm never went off, I even removed the plastic immediately upon noticing it without telling any of them in the hopes it would go off) I am relatively certain that I was getting some negative results. The stress of academic probation and this suite has also left me with what appears to be a permanent new addition to my life, my left eyelid beats incredibly hard when I feel elevated stress levels. I can see the refreshing of a screen when it happens and it makes reading even more difficult, as well as concentrating, which in turn stresses me further and then I find myself having even more thumping.

As I said before (or I believe I did, I’ve rewritten this a few times) I have made an effort to not express my issues. I generally tend to ignore negative events as best I can and hopefully in kind forget it. However during my Abnormal Psychology course this quarter we had to write a stress diary. Every hour we would chronicle the events of the hour and the stress it was having on us. By the end of the second day I was so depressed that I wasn’t eating and I hadn’t even left bed until my girlfriend came to get me. I had to stop it after and remind myself that everything was ok. The panic attack portion of this image happened a few days after this. For the exception of a week ago when I was very ill I didn’t miss a single class this quarter except for that day. It was at that moment when I realized just how much I wanted people to know. I emailed Michael Singletary promptly.

Unfortunately, as I said before that I got sick the week following that stress diary. Which I find curious because it was shortly after Professor Lewis told us that students regularly get sick near finals because stress weakens the immune system. I’m still wondering if it had a placebo effect on me and I consequently got sick. However by no fault of Mr. Singletary I haven’t yet been able to meet him, but I would like to.

This quarter I have had three of the best professors in the history of my college career. In fact for the exception of my World War II history professor in community college, Max Lewis, Kelly Jantzen, and Ira Hyman are easily 2-4 of the best professors in my life. While I haven’t performed at a level that I feel I could under optimum conditions, they have helped me excel at the highest level I possibly could in my living situation. What I am asking is for a single extra quarter, I’ve gone from a 1.38 to a 1.69 and to likely a 1.8 or higher this quarter. I want to take one quarter at this college while living off campus, where I cannot be under the constant influence of distractions and drugs. I am certain I can show just who I am. I only had one major panic attack this quarter during my biopsychology course, which I retook because I don’t feel I learned anything but fear from the first go. While that panic attack crushed my grade, I see my potential. I really don’t want to be removed right before I am able to succeed.

So this goes out To Whom It May Concern; I would like a chance to show just what I can do. It’s a small request that I hope doesn’t fall upon deaf ears. Now that I’m going to be away from this nightmare (I in fact had quite frequent dreams of me breaking down, which mirrored my feelings in the conscious world) I would like to take one last stab at this, I’m signed up for the summer already and I would hope that my improvement over just the summer would show that I can do great things. I love psychology, I am nothing but awestruck by the professors, and I am hungry for more information. I want to see another winter on this campus, and I want to feel like I’ve conquered what has become the biggest demon in my entire life. I really don’t want to find myself before a committee of people attempting to convince them that I’m not some academic skid mark on the clean white undies of the Western campus.

I thank you for your time and reading what has to be a jumbled mess of events. I’ve omitted a great deal, and I’ve exaggerated nothing (not to my knowledge at least), which is what makes this a bit more depressing for me.

By the end of this school year they were shouting over who had eaten the last shroom, ranting about who drank the rest of the boos, whining about how they were finally out of weed, and at the very moment I am sending this, a day before we all have to leave, my room still reeks of marijuana and my bathroom and front door are both wide open. I thought that oddly appropriate of a fair well.

-Michael Walker W00855718-

Abstract

A Review of the history of Childhood Amnesia, covering the beginning of the great HM revolution, the initial acknowledgement of Childhood Amnesia by Sigmund Freud, the suggested causes and known length of Amnesia. It follows into the last few decades covering more recent explanations and patterns across research of CA; from the possible Cultural influences, to the emotional and language evolutions of children. Finally ending with the possible future of CA research and the real world uses of the information; then ending on the somber note of another person lost in time; CL and the mysteries around the life of a child growing without memory.

In 1962, a boy named Henry was born; unbeknownst to him an unfortunate personal future would lead to incredible advances in the understanding of the human brain and human memory as a hole. A life threatening case of Epilepsy left him with an improbable future or the possible cure through a process of removing the hippocampi and surrounding tissue. While his epilepsy was cured, Henry would live a future without motion. A life that consisted entirely of the past and the ever refreshing present, his name would be lost in the psychology reports and he received a more renowned title “H.M.” Since this case many types of memory have been explored and with each passing year more is known, however there are some mysteries that seem to still persist without a real solid reason over 100 years after initial acknowledgement. Sigmund Freud is widely quoted as saying “the peculiar amnesia which, in the case of most people, though by no means all, hides the earliest beginnings of their childhood up to their sixth or eighth year” and it is sure that anyone you ask will be able to concur that their childhood isn’t without its large gaps. This paper hopes to cover the possible causes, suggested by psychologists from across the US and the world, the probable cause or causes, similarities seen across multiple reports, and what the future may hold for Childhood Amnesia as well as the possible implications of understanding this global phenomenon.

The brain is an ever evolving mass of neurons; new connections are made with each passing day. As time passes neurons are lost through natural aging and the unfortunate truth of disease (Morrison, 1997). While this is true throughout the world it does not account for children; a child’s neurons are still forming and the likelihood of disease or neural decay in the entirety of humanity is not only a pessimistic outlook but one which is highly unlikely. It is also unlikely that the major mechanism is repression due to factors like Trauma, Sexual confusion, or any other conflict of the id versus the ego (Freud, 1953), this idea being equally pessimistic. The process of our cognitive self is a gradual one, in fact it is something that is somewhat unique to our species; Evolution has given an increasing understanding of the physical world to each new generation of beast. From the single celled creatures that had only the simplest of understanding (in the absence of senses), we’ve moved along until we reached the point of humans. All known living creatures with senses have testable understandings of their environment; however it is humans that have reached a point of long term memory and supremely complex thought. While our understanding of self is not entirely unique, with primates and some other mammals showing signs of it as well, this level of evolution of the brain may be so overwhelming that it takes many years for the underlying bridgework to be completed. In most recent studies, and dating as far back to Freud himself, the general length of complete childhood amnesia lasts up until and occasionally beyond age 3, generally ending around age 4 (Eacott, 1999; Peterson,2005; Bruce, Phillips-Grant, Wilcox-O’Hearn, Robinson, & Francis, 2005; Fitzgerald, 1991).

So it would be without little surprise that research has been looking towards the major developments during these times. From the effects of cultural influences to something as simple as formulaic childhood lifestyles, of the many possible causes there are three of the most prominence that I feel pass the possible and move into the realm of probable are that of cultural influences, language, and emotion. These three staples that much of human history can give its thanks to are developed to the highest degree in the beginnings of youth. As children we are taught by our parents what is culturally acceptable, from countries with more individualistic and personal views as with those within Asia and for more social and open cultures such as those of western, specifically American, nations. One can argue that language grows beyond the timeline of childhood amnesia however the act of advancing beyond mere calls and whimpers to a sophisticated communication system is a jump that is rarely if ever replicated again in life, one would be truly lucky to experience it twice. So in kind is the ever expanding library of a child’s emotions, anyone who has children or watched one grow has undoubtedly seen the child evolve from a generally two sided “Pleased or Crying” coin to a more rounded baker’s dozen of emotions that more readily imitate what it is to be human.

Childhood amnesia follows a ratio that closely mimics these three theories. From the moment a child is born the amount of fragmented memories compared to complete personal memories does indeed transition rather steadily. This transfer completes roughly around the age of 8 (Nelson, 1984). There were factors that Nelson attributed to this transition; the first was that children group memories that are similar into one singular event, secondly that events that were highly unusual escaped this rule. One could further postulate that any child who had many unusual events would likely collect them as the nature of them being unusual is undermined by the commonality of their presence. To test this personally one can think back to their earliest childhood memory, it is usually either something highly unusual (EG. Falling from a tree house) or something that is very generalized (playing in the yard), while we can remember something akin to our parents tucking us in we can generally not establish an accurate date to when it occurred nor can we recall any specific details that would hint to a certain time period. The unique events we do recall from our childhood after a certain point become a small collection of everyday activities that encompass much of our childhood. This is likely extrapolated by the very rudimentary lifestyles that most children have a normal industrialized life.

Fiske & Pillemer (2006) performed an experiment on 100 Wellesley College students, all of which were female, 45 were European American, 33 were Asian American, and 22 identified as other or mixed identity. The experiment was formed to explain the social interaction explanation of autobiographical memory development; that is the relation between our speaking of our personal memories and the strength of them over time. Participants were given a questionnaire to identify their ethnicity as well as their household structure growing up. They were then asked to record the three earliest dreams they could remember from childhood. They were also questioned on how often they spoke with their parents about their dreams and the frequency, emotional tone, and intensity of conversations. The participant’s parents were also sent questionnaires with similar forms. 97% of the participants reported dreams with a mean age of 6 years of age (2.26 SD), and 2% of the participants recalled memories from before the age of 3. Of the parents, 30% responded positively (eg. Remembered) on the memories, 42% responded negatively (eg. Did not remember), and 28% responded with an unsure status. When questioned on how often they had discussed dreams with their children 58% responded to have never discussed them; 36% responded with having once or twice, and 6% responded with having discussing dreams occasionally (none of the parents answered with frequently). The divide comes when the experimenters looked at the variant between the European American and Asian American participants. The mean age of memories was considerably younger for European Americans at 5.64 years, than for the Asian Americans at 6.82 years. This matched nicely with the data on discussing their dreams with 40% of the European Americans noting they had discussed their dreams and 24% of Asian Americans responding to have not/never discussed their dreams. This also was dramatically present in those who were willing to allow their parents to receive questionnaires with 71% of the European American’s allowing for their parents to be interviewed and only 12% of the Asian Americans. While it is true the participants were trying to recall a dream and not just any early memory, the findings are still similar to those of other studies. With the exception of being a year or two higher on the mean overall age.

This supports the idea of social influence effecting the development of memory mechanisms. Dreams have been used as a form of psychological examination, Calvin Hall & David Foulkes performed a two-week dream study on students and long term dream journals on Adults across many ages and found that our dreams closely tie into our personal self (Foulkes, 1985). If we are introspective then our dreams will likely be a continuity of that, likewise if we are outgoing our dreams will be equally outgoing. This interest in dreams and the self goes as far back as Freud and will likely continue for centuries to come. It would seem understandable then that a lack of a cognitive self would lead to a lack of dreams. It would also seem likely that in cultures where the dreams of children are not emphasized in some manner or discussion of such paradigms discouraged that children would more slowly develop a cognitive self and thusly have longer states of Childhood Amnesia. Likewise in a follow up experiment by Fiske & Pillemer of 97 students at Wellesley covered the previous information as well as a new issue, the participants’ personal feelings towards the strength and meaningfulness of dreams. The findings were almost identical to that of the first experiment with the added note of those with the strongest memories of their childhood dreams also having the strongest personal views towards dreams. These studies holds up strong across many of the paradigms of Childhood Amnesia, however it would seem that dreams are a single part of the larger understanding of our cognitive self.

In 1991, Joseph Fitzgerald, conducted an experiment in which he tested an experiment on six and ten year old children. The theory was that children at these ages have a stronger cognitive connection to their early childhood memories and that by studying their responses we could establish the least obstructed recollections of this amazing phenomenon. Fitzgerald’s findings tied in well with Nelson (eg. Consolidation and unique memories), using pictures from the Peabody picture vocabulary test; he had the children recall the oldest memory that came to mind when thinking about the image. While the children showed difficulty in recalling their memories, like a person of any age when asked to recall childhood memories, they were rather successful in doing so. Each participant was tested 24 times, and were questioned on the estimated date for each event, on a cross examination at a later date each participant was 73% accurate on their dating of the incident. This was done to eliminate a statistical likelihood of children fabricating the dates instead of recalling their answers from the first experiment. Their memories followed the ratio rule beautifully, memories that were 2 to 12 months before the experiment dated as broadly as seasons of time (Eg. Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall) whereas events that transpired further back than that became as vast as the calendar age they were at the time. While the 10 year olds scored lower it was not a significant difference. Fitzgerald noted that young children have a bias towards general knowledge, a possibly adaptive function that is used to understand the social and physical world. An understanding that further strengthens the understanding of self and the future mechanisms of memory.

It would be reasonable then to postulate that emotion and/or language play a role in this evolution and eventual inability to recall. As our understanding of emotion and language grows our need to have such rudimentary understandings of the world become meaningless, we develop more complex forms of understanding and in turn develop more complex means of memory. The more robust and sooner our development of these features the sooner our personal memories become. Bruce et. al (2007) performed an experiment on 203 introductory psychology students, the theory being that much like previous research they would find a prominence of Childhood Amnesia around the age of 3. Constructive reasoning skills and language tend to begin their quick upward drive around the age of 3 and it is here that we see the usual increase in memory. However the suggestion that it is language primarily that affects our ability to construct solid memories hits a snag. Bruce et. Al (2007) found that the mean age in their study of Childhood Amnesia cut off on average around 5. Most children begin to master their language skills at age 3 and have a strong (relative to their early years) understanding of their native tongue before age 5 (NIDCD, 2001). Bruce et. Al (2007) also noted however that this conflict is offset by the fact that there was a significantly higher portion of “know” memories, than of personal memories. These memories may very well have been causing a phenomenon where the differing memories all relate to a similar dominant cue, when attempting to recall differing pieces of information the initial data recalled will stay dominant and result in any differing memory becoming blocked (A good personal example is when attempting to remember a name and a conflicting name you know to be false keeps coming up). This unfortunately falls to speculation as there were no common mechanisms to tie to it.

In a previous study by Bruce, Wilcox-O’Hearn, Robinson, Phillips-Grant, Francis, & Smith (2005), they tested three forms of memory, on 108 introductory psychology students: Behaviors, Images, and Emotions. They also expanded the range of memories from 8 to 16. The theory was that the longer range would cause the participants to recall more event memories and as such we would find predominantly more fragments in the childhood years (Bruce Et. al, 2005). This would also expand the range of cues and lesson the possible interference discussed in the previous paragraph. What they found was fragmented memories generally had lower levels of overall detail, lacking a sense of emotion and sensory information. Of the memories that were recalled 48% of the fragments were actions or things that happened, 49% were scenes or sensory impressions, and 2.3% were emotion. A serious lack of emotion was found in the memories that spanned the time of childhood amnesia (from 0-3 and in some cases as high as age 8). In a previous study the cognitive self was defined as forming around age 2 (Howe & Courage, 1993); which is supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) findings on the foundation of a child’s basic understanding of their native tongue being also during age 2. This development of the self also matches the rise in memories found in both studies of Bruce et. Al (2005), as memories begin to show at age 2-2.5 and rise quickly till the limit of age 16. The almost exponential rise in memories ties in nicely with the development of a child’s native language and begins to plateau as they reach the age of 8, keeping a high per year output of personal memories. The differing growth in fragmented memories compared to linear memories in both studies is unusually disjointed. The participants in the 0 to 8 memory group showed event recollection that mirrored the 0 to 16 memory group’s fragmented memories. Whereas the 0 to 16 group’s event recollection rose remarkably slower than the 0 to 8 group’s event recollections. Bruce et. Al (2005) suggests that this is caused by our lack of autobiographical skills as a young age and our lack of finding necessity in using them for events at later stages.

As stated previously parents play a strong role in the development of their child’s cognitive self. Pillemer 1998) states that parents play a strong role in a child’s abilities to develop memories. The direction of parents towards their children to, focused attention, guidance, and nurturance. A study performed by, Main, Kaplan, and Cassidy (1985) is what helped develop these theories of Pillemer. There are noticeable structures to an infant’s actions, one in particular their reaction when separated and then reacquainted with their parental figure. The children first regained proximity to the parents and once that was established they returned to their systematic lifestyle of play and consumption, children who didn’t remake this connection became disorganized and relatively chaotic. This mechanism of strong parental attachment is what gives support to the concept of parental influence on childhood memories. Children imitate their parents, and as parents experience differing emotions around their children, their children develop more complex emotional systems as well. Children denied these moments of imitation and attachment are disorganized and have very restricted speaking abilities (Main et. al, 1985). As discovered earlier, a child’s stronger memory coincides strongly with their development of speech and social constructs. Just as their development of social understanding helps develop their emotional library.

It is unlikely that any one of these three factors is the primary constituent to the transition from the seemingly sparse chasm of memories in our very early childhood to the incredibly dense and detailed memories of our older selves. However with the strikingly similar findings across all three over these avenues it becomes certain that they each play a combined role in the evolution of the cognitive self and in doing so the transition from the generalized memories of youth to the detailed memories of adolescents and beyond. It may be the transition from the unknown self to the known that causes such a great disparity, much like transferring to a new operating system on a PC, the information of old becomes disjointed and at times unusable by the new system. Likewise our brains may be having difficulty recalling the old memories and in turn storing them, or scrapping them entirely, for new more relevant and structured memories.

In the future it would be nice to see if this transition can be pinpointed, better understanding of it could unlock the memories of youth. Giving us the ability to emulate the thought patterns of our younger selves in an attempt to recover pieces of such. It would also seem that understanding memory at its simplest form would help in developing ways to fixing cases of memory loss. For in science it is generally when we have the understanding of the subject’s simplest components that we can then build upon the complexities that are atop it; Which leads me from the case of HM, to the case of an 8 year old known only as CL. CL received brain surgery to remove an ependymona (brain tumor) at the age of 4; at the age of 8 it was discovered that CL had severe anterograde amnesia (Vicari, Menghini, Paola C., Serra, Donfrancesco, Paola D., Milano, & Carlesimo,2007). While she was, like HM, in a perpetual dream state her semantic memory was unaffected. After extensive chemotherapy and surgery it was found in an MRI that CL had a lesion in her left caudate nucleus and it was surgically removed, the lesion had been caused by neural death by extensive chemotherapy. Studies by Vicari et. al (2007) showed that CL had relatively average semantic abilities, performing well within range for the digit span test and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test; however her recollection of Episodic events was gravely hindered. Incidents like CL are uncommon but not unheard of, CC (Ostergaard, 1987); TC (Wood, Brown, and Felton, 1989), MS (Broman, Rose, Hotson, and Casey, 1997), and AV (Brizzolara & Casalini, 2002) each have hauntingly similar stories of brain damage leading to a nearly complete loss of Episodic memory. It is hoped that with further study of memory and the different mechanisms of amnesia that someday we can return these patients and people like then from a state of acronym and living dream to a full named and fully developing life.

Works Cited

Brizzolara, D., Casalini, C., Montanaro, D., & Posteraro, F. (2003). A case of amnesia at an early age. Cortex, 39, 605–625.

Broman, M., Rose, A. L., Hotson, G.,&Casey, C. M. (1997). Severe anterograde amnesia with onset in childhood as a result of anoxic encephalopathy. Brain, 120, 417–433.

Bruce, D., Dolan, A. & Phillips-Grant, K. (2000). On the transition from childhood amnesia to the recall of personal memories. Psychological Science, 11, 360-364.

Bruce, D., Wilcox-O’Hearn, L. A., Robinson, J. A., Philips-Grant, K., & Francis, L. (2007). Memory fragments as components of autobiographical knowledge. Applied Cognitive Psychology. Vol 21(3), Apr 2007, pp. 307-324

Bruce, D., Wilcox-O’Hearn, L. A., Robinson, J. A., Philips-Grant, K., Francis, L. & Smith, M. C. (2005). Fragment memories mark the end of childhood amnesia. Memory & Cognition, 33, 567-576.

David Foulkes (1985). Dreaming: A cognitive-psychological analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Eacott, M. (1999). Memory for the events of early childhood. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 46-49.

Eacott, M. J. & Crawley, R. A. (1999). Childhood amnesia: On answering questions about very early life events. Memory (Hove, England), 7, 279-292.

Eacott, M. J. & Crawley, R. A. (1998). The offset of childhood amnesia: Memory for events that occurred before age 3. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127, 22-33.

Fiske, K. E. & Pillemer, D. B. (2006). Adult recollections of earliest childhood dreams: A cross-cultural study. Memory, 14, 57-67.

Fitzgerald, J. M. (1991). A developmental account of early childhood amnesia. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 152, 159-171.

Freud, S. (1953). Introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. In J. Stachey (Ed.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vols. 15-16). London: Hogarth Press (Original work published 1916-1917).

Main, M. (1991). Metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive monitoring, and singular (coherent) vs. multiple (incoherent) model of attachment: Findings and directions for future research. In C. M. Parkes, J.Stevenson-Hinde, & P. Marris (Eds.), Attachment across the life cycle (pp. 127–159). London: Tavistock/Routledge.

Morrison, JH. “Life and Death of Neurons in the Aging Brain.” Science 278.5337 (1997):412-.

Nelson, K., & Ross, G. (1980). The generalities and specifics on long-term memory in infants and young children. In M. Perlmutter (Ed.), Children’s memory: New directions for child development (Vol. 10, pp.87-101). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ostergaard, A. L. (1987). Episodic, semantic and procedural memory in a caseof amnesia at an early age. Neuropsychologia, 25, 341–357.

Peterson, C. (2005). Childhood amnesia in children and adolescents: their earliest memories. Memory, 13, 622-637.

Pillemer, D. B. (1998). What is remembered about early childhood events. Clinical Psychology Review, 18, 895-913.

Vicari, S., Menghini, D., Paola, M., Serra, L., Donfrancesco, A., Fidani, P., Milano, G., & Carlesimo, G.. (2007). Acquired amnesia in childhood: A single case study. Neuropsychologia. Vol 45, 2007, 704–715

Wood, F. B., Brown, I. S., & Felton, R. H. (1989). Long-term follow-up of a childhood amnesic syndrome. Brain and Cognition, 10, 76–86.

—

That was effing hard, I hope I get at least a B on it :(.

- Rico

I was looking at a small set of stairs today and something caught my eye about them. Stairs are of ingenious design; however that was with one important factor, I was looking at them from the top. Beside those stairs was a wheelchair ramp which was a bit longer but more gradual in its slope. I looked back at the stairs from my position of superiority and decided that it was indeed the greater of the two inventions.

I feel this is how people treat standardized testing. Those who create and stand by standardized testing are the ones that are atop the stairs. They see a quick and efficient path to the bottom and assume the same can be said for the travel up. However if you place them at the bottom of those stairs they find themselves suddenly in the same position of excess energy use (and waste) as you.

Stairs, much like standardized tests, are the quickest path to the top; assuming you exclude escalators and elevators which could be metaphorically representing those affected by affirmative action or those with strong rich family ties respectively (that’s a topic for another day or chapter to this tale). We look at standardized tests and assume that they grade whether or not someone understands the material. However I find it remarkable that we do not look around at the 300 million or so people in the US and take a gander at what we’ll find. Many of these people have experienced and survived standardized testing. However their understanding and retention of nearly everything they were tested on is minimalist at best. Instead of them building off the gist of a concept they were forced to learn specific and individualistically nonsensical information. Granules of information that in and of themselves give nothing to the overall understanding of the topic.

I propose a more standardized form of standardized testing. Falling back to the stair metaphor you will find that much like stairs, the smaller a test is the harsher and steeper the questions become. It’s as if the tester assumes that by making a test 25 questions instead of 75 their class is suddenly more intelligent. When a set of stairs is built the size and lift of the stairs is generally far more pronounced on stairs that are low in number, where those that go up for a ways are generally more gradual and lengthy (check out the haggard hall entrance stairs for an example). Tests should be just as difficult whether they be 25 questions or 250 questions.

I believe in a world of “choose the best answer” questions we need something better than an all or nothing system. If the answer is not the only right answer then why is it that that answers the only one worth points? I understood this system in high school because you had 1 right answer and 3 answers that were wrong, more wrong, and “what the hell is this” wrong. Now we have questions that very at times on something as nonsensical as spelling. Serotonin compared to Seratonine for instance. Because in the real world, a typo is the different between curing cancer and creating an army of monsters that exhibit rabies like tendencies and an inability to come in contact with UV rays (hopefully you get this reference). It should instead work on a graduated point system (the kind that 99% of internet personality quizzes use or even psychological tests).

If you have multiple answers and 1 is far more correct than the others you would score it 3 points, if another answer is correct on the basics but wrong on the specifics it would be a 2 or 1 point, a question that is completely wrong could be worth either 0 or if its flat out to the opposite direction it could be -1 (for instance GABA is not excitatory but they pick the answer that treats it as such). The tests could also be graded on a curve scale, I know a lot of professors (or at least those I’ve had) have a pension for curves because they consistently test harder than they teach. They’ll give you the basics and test on the specifics, which leaves them with a classroom of cold sweat ridden balls of fleshy panic. The person with the most points would be the 100% score and you could work on a certain point scale down. Say the test is out of 100, and someone gets 100. The 100 and a half SD down would be the A range, another half SD down would be the A- range, and so on until you get to the F’s. If everyone scores within the first two standard deviations or so you are doing well (if not you want to question your testing methods and have an open dialogue with the class about the topic).

Also I feel that the quizzes that come with the online help (like mypsychkit) have a great idea that should be put in these tests. Response sheets, be it digital or printed, these sheets would give you back the answers you chose for each question (maybe not the questions since professors always worry about kids copying them and sending them to the world) and a short sentence or two on either why it was wrong or where they can look in the book to see why they were wrong. This way tests are not a matter of ostracizing those who aren’t intelligent but instead of checkpoints to examine the overall retention of the class as well as points to help re-establish the foundation of the topic.

If you never build the gist, or schema, on a topic you will never get people competent enough to use the information effectively. I imagine there are strong reasons to why the medical field, along with countless others, move at a snail’s pace which I’d be willing to say has something to do with our poorly conceived and archaic form of testing.

We also need more tests; I would think that 1 test a week or biweekly on each topic would be far more beneficial than the current bi or tri exams a quarter. It could even be cumulative, you have the first exam be 10-50 questions, on the next exam it would be 10-50 + 5-15 of the more important pieces of the last test, on the next one it would be 10-50 with 5-10 from the first and 5-10 from the second and so on. The tests would get longer but the repetition of previous information would help the students retain it, this would also reduce some greatly negative impactions like cue overload (something I suffer from greatly) and testing anxiety (again), the anxiety that comes from a test would be at levels almost too low to even worry about if exams weren’t make or break.

This system would create steps like you have at many buildings on hills, you’d have a set of steps that require a good portion of energy, then a flat walkway to regain your strength, and another set of stairs. The gradual raises with breaks closely simulates the sloping without completely breaking away from the comfort that has risen from decades (I’d say centuries but I’m unsure of the history of education to that level) of using the same system.

At an interview at NASA Will Wright was explaining how SPORE (a game he’s developing) could be used for educational purposes, and how games like it could explain in visually dynamic ways the evolution of the galaxy and other complex topics from biology, to chemistry, and even Architecture. He made the note that unfortunately it would be difficult to adhere to standardized testing with these procedures, a staff member at NASA said “wouldn’t that be a good thing” and the crowd (as well as Will) began to chatter in agreement followed by a chuckle. I’m not saying that NASA is full of geniuses, but I would like to think that people dealing with issues like landing a robot on something as distant as Mars are at least competent enough to know something about information retention and use.

There is a reason that children can learn the names of all the Pokemon in a month but cannot pass a test on the elements off the periodic table in a quarter. It’s because unlike gaming, education has ceased its evolutionary process. We pass bills and make tests that in some abstract almost inebriated way are supposed to assist and improve education but our students are consistently becoming less interested and disturbingly less informed. We need more people to stand at the bottom of the stairs when they are thinking, not at the top.