Chapter 6 Blog Post #1

Something that caught my attention in Chapter 6 was the section on memory. I have always been interested in how the brain remembers events and information. It amazes me how we can remember something we learned in elementary school even if we have never reviewed it or practiced it since then. I thought it was interesting that memory is connected with language ability. I never really realized that we use words to store and retain memories. As I thought more about it, memories could not exist without some type of word association to trigger a recall. This makes sense why children have trouble remembering occurrences from their preverbal stage. Since they do not really know any words yet, they do not know how to associate words with an event to make it a permanent memory.

Another thing that caught my attention regarding memory was the importance of making a distinction between implicit memory and explicit memory. Implicit memories are ones that are only recalled once something triggers your mind and reminds you of it. Explicit memories on the other hand, are ones that can be recalled on the spot. It is interesting how our mind makes some of our memories implicit while others are explicit. The one thing that I question from the text is where it says that older children are often unable to recall one-time events from their past. I think it's actually easier to describe events that only happened once, given that they were something worth remembering. For example, I can recall and describe vacations that happened once much easier than occurrences that happened multiple times such as hanging out with my best friend from elementary school. For this reason, I think it's actually easier to recall one-time events as long as they are significant.