N.B. This is a final draft only and is not identical to the version to be published.

John Sutton, 'Cognitive Conceptions of Language and the Development of Autobiographical

Memory',
Language and Communication 22 (!!", #$%&#'!(
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Cognitive Conceptions of Language
and
The Development of Autobiographical Memory
John Sutton
Dept of )hilosophy
Mac-uarie .niversity
/S0 1!'
jsutton@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au
http://www.phil.mq.edu.au/staf/jsutton/
Abstract
2he early development of autobiographical memory is a useful case study both for e3amining
general relations bet4een language and memory, and for investigating the promise and the
difficulty of interdisciplinary research in the cognitive sciences of memory( An other4ise
promising social&interactionist vie4 of autobiographical memory development relies in part
on an overly linguistic conception of mental representation( 2his paper applies an alternative,
5supra&communicative6 vie4 of the relation bet4een language and thought, along the lines
developed by Andy Clar,, to this developmental frame4or,( A pluralist approach to current
theories of autobiographical memory development is s,etched* shared early narratives about
the past function in part to stabili7e and structure the child6s o4n autobiographical memory
system(
8ey4ords
Memory9 autobiographical memory9 interdisciplinarity9 developmental psychology(
1. Introduction: learning to remember
2. Interdisciplinarity in the sciences of memory
3. The significance of autobiographical memory
4. Language, thought, and memory: some anti-epressi!ist options
". The supra-communicati!e !ie#
$. %ocial interactionism and autobiographical memory de!elopment
&. To#ards a de!elopmental systems !ie#: internali'ation and self-regulation
(c)no#ledgements
*ootnotes
+eferences
1. Introduction: learning to remember
2he 1&year&old son of a developmental psychologist loo,ed up from his home4or, to
as, his mother6s help 4ith a 4riting assignment, as,ing :Mom, 4hat is my most
important memory;: (<ngel 1''', p(="( >o4 can another person have direct and
intimate access to my most significant memories; Autobiographical memory for
events in the personal past is a capacity 4hich develops in a shared environment( ?ts
content as 4ell as its e3pression is influenced by that conte3t( @rom its initial stages in
the pre&school years, autobiographical memory gro4s out of interpersonal e3changes(
Developmental studies are a rich and flourishing area 4ithin the sciences of memory(
Despite great variety in methods and assumptions, most schools of developmental
thought are thoroughly interdisciplinary, calling to different degrees on
neuropsychology and social psychology as 4ell as on cognitive psychology9 and most
accept, in some e3planatory conte3ts at least, the significant causal influence over time
of the remembering environment( Learning to remember in company, or Aoint
reminiscing, is one of the core forms of shared attention in childhood, a form 4hich is
directed specifically to4ards the past even 4hen it also serves current or action&
oriented purposes(
:Autobiographical memory: (AM", often called :personal memory: by philosophers,
refers to e3plicit recollections of past events and episodes in a personal history(
Although consensus on a more precise 4or,ing definition is surprisingly hard to find,
a fairly orthodo3 account is that of 0illiam +re4er (1''B", 4ho sees AM as a reliving
or reviving of my o4n past phenomenal e3perience, 4ith the additional ,no4ledge
that ?6ve had that e3perience before( )erner (!!!, p(#!$" sees AM as a more
sophisticated capacity, 4hich :entails a reflection on past events as past events, as
events that one ,no4s (conscious, e3plicit memory" and as personally e3perienced
(episodic, autonoetic memory":(footnote 1"(
Just ho4 might the sharing of memories, both in language and in non&linguistic
practices (", influence the organi7ation of early AM; An approach to the -uestion, ?
suggest, re-uires tighter integration bet4een the developmental psychology of
memory and general cognitive scientific in-uiry into the nature and the vehicles of
mental representation( Current vie4s in the developmental literature, ho4ever, loo, on
initial e3amination to be in some tension 4ith prevailing assumptions in cognitive
science about the priority of thought over language( ?n this paper, then, ? s,etch an
inchoate interpretation of the t4o fields, and of possible relations bet4een them,
4hich might be mutually beneficial(
Specifically, ? 4ant to apply to memory research one particular cognitive conception
of language, the 5supra&communicative6 vie4 recently developed by Andy Clar, and
others* on this vie4, language is :the ultimate artifact:, the supreme human tool not
Aust for communicating thoughts, but for thin,ing (Clar,, 1''$, chapter 1!"( Clar,6s
vision of language as a po4erful form of cognitive 5scaffolding6 dra4s on
developmental research influenced by the Soviet psychologist Lev Cygots,y, 4hose
4or, also inspires the 5social&interactionist6 school of AM research( 2his important
group, 4hich includes Dobyn @ivush, 8atherine /elson, and others, argues (in the
e3treme" that :early reminiscing begins as an interpersonal process and only becomes
intrapersonal over time: (<ngel, 1''', p($"( 2hey thus set the study of culture,
narrative genre, and personality in the child6s linguistic environment at the heart of the
investigation into the origins of AM( ?n a sense, then, given this shared intellectual
heritage, ? am not even trying to lin, t4o distinct frame4or,s, but simply to render
shared commitments e3plicit (#"(
After a brief description of the conte3t of this proAect in a broader in-uiry into
interdisciplinarity in memory research, ? fill in a richer account of the significance of
AM (section #", before ? introduce Clar,6s 5supra&communicative6 or developmental
systems vie4 by locating it in a range of cognitive conceptions of language (sections
=&%"( ?n section B, ? identify a problem for the other4ise promising social&interactionist
approach to AM development, arguing that it is compatible 4ith a less linguistici7ed
vision of the format of mental representation than its proponents currently prefer( 2he
final section then applies the supra&communicative vie4 to memory development,
s,etching a pluralist causal frame4or, 4hich gives language and narrative practices
their full developmental 4eight 4ithout proAecting the form of e3ternal symbol
systems bac, on to the organi7ation of the AM system itself(
2his attempt to use AM development as a case study in interdisciplinary theory&
construction, and in the understanding the relation bet4een language and memory,
inevitably ranges too superficially over a number of distinct specialist subdisciplines(
2he aim is neither to offer a thorough survey of relevant empirical investigation, nor to
pin do4n and argue finally for a specific and precise theoretical position( ? intend
instead merely to point out one 4ay of forging connections bet4een fields of cognitive
science( <ven if my particular interpretation of the common features does not
convince, failing to address important empirical, psychoanalytic, or philosophical
issues, ? hope at least to offer resources for a legitimate form of interdisciplinary
in-uiry 4hich may suggest fruitful further lines of research(
2. Interdisciplinarity in the sciences of memory
Apart from its intrinsic interest, the developmental study of AM is a vital hinge
bet4een neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, and social psychology( ?f, amidst the
daunting array of current sciences of memory, 4e are ever to construct an integrated
frame4or,, this is as promising a place to start as any( 2he goal 4ould not be the
unification of all memory sciences by classical reduction, but the elucidation of local
points of contact bet4een different (sub"disciplines, in the search for interfield
theories (Darden and Maull, 1'$$", or in pinpointing genuinely interdependent
phenomena at different levels of e3planation (8itcher 1'', pp(B&$9 Sutton, !!"(
A number of philosophers of psychology have ta,en other areas of the sciences of
memory as case studies in interdisciplinary theory&construction( 8enneth Schaffner
(1''#" and John +ic,le (1''%, 1''E" illustrate their ne4, liberali7ed conceptions of
reduction 4ith treatments of 8andel6s neurobiological account of associative learning
in the sea&slug Aplysia (=". Lindley Darden, Carl Craver, and 0illiam +echtel address
the 4ays neuropsychologists and neurobiologists thin, of levels, mechanisms, and
decomposition in the study of spatial memory and in the locali7ation of memory
systems (Craver and Darden !!1, Craver forthcoming, +echtel !!1"( Calerie
>ardcastle constructs a detailed narrative of the integration of interdisciplinary
traditions, methods, and theories in the development of the distinction bet4een
implicit and e3plicit memory systems (1''B, chapter B"( +ut 4hereas these 4riters
address the relations bet4een the neural and the cognitive sciences of memory, there
has been little 4or, on cognitive psychology6s relations 4ith the personality,
developmental, or social psychology of memory( Developmental studies in particular
are ripe for such investigation, because of their ,ey role in the forging of a broad
consensus across cognitive psychology in the 1''!s about the constructive nature of
remembering, and the importance of the conte3t of retrieval(
A number of difficult -uestions about interdisciplinarity can be fruitfully raised in the
specific case of the study of memory( <ven if cognitive science is still :a mere babe in
the 4oods of science: (von <c,ardt 1''', p(1", the cognitive sciences of memory
nevertheless harness a vast institutional, technological, and te3tual apparatus more
typical of 8uhnian normal science than of an entirely pre&paradigmatic era( 0e can
as,, for e3ample, to 4hat e3tent memory is typical in its susceptibility to
interdisciplinary analysis( 2he methodological problems of investigating early AM
might be compared on the one hand 4ith those 4hich beset research into children6s
dreaming (@oul,es 1'''", and on the other 4ith the more successful interdisciplinary
e3change 4hich has characteri7ed research on colour categori7ation (Dedric, 1''E"(
+ut the potential pitfalls of interdisciplinary theory&construction are e-ually li,ely to
emerge( ?n particular, 4e must recall the caution e3pressed by )atricia 8itcher (1'',
pp(1$&=, 1E!&#" about the error of seeing the mere coherence and harmony of
theories from different domains as conclusive evidence for the truth of both( 0ith this
timely 4arning in mind, though, 4e can proceed by restricting our ambitions to initial
conceptual geography, rather than overhyped claims for immediate success(
3. The significance of autobiographical memory
?t's in the autobiographical form of episodic memory that 4e achieve a form of
:mental time travel:, in 4hich 4e're oriented to events as occurring at particular past
times, events 4hich 4e sometimes ,nit into autobiographical narratives (2ulving
1'E#, 1''#, 1'''9 Suddendorf and Corballis 1''$"( +ut 4hat e3actly is this capacity,
and ho4 does it arise;
Children start tal,ing about the past :almost as soon as they begin tal,ing:, but the
form of their references to past events develops rapidly over some years (/elson and
@ivush !!!*EB" (%"( At early stages, adults provide much of both the structure and
the content of young children's references to the past, providing 'scaffolding' for the
children's memories( ?nitially children use generic event memories implicitly, li,e
scripts, as a basis on 4hich to understand routines and generate e3pectations* they
,no4 4hat typically happens in certain repeated se-uences of actions or events( +ut
this is not yet a capacity to remember particular past events( ?t ta,es some time for
children to ac-uire the ability spontaneously to refer to specific past episodes 4ith rich
phenomenal content( ?n section B belo4 ? discuss the social&interactionist account of
ho4 these changes unfold, comparing it 4ith differing vie4s on the role of Aoint
reminiscing( +ut first it6s 4orth spelling out the psychological significance of the
development of more mature AM capacities in a little more detail(
Children gradually develop perspectival temporal frame4or,s in 4hich to locate
memories of idiosyncratic events( Memory sharing practices, often initiated by adults,
encourage the idea of different perspectives on the same once&occupied time
(McCormac, and >oerl 1''', especially pp(1$#&="( ?n developing this temporal
perspective&s4itching, children start to ta,e memories as obAects for negotiation,
shared attention, and discussion( Deali7ation of the e3istence of discrepancies bet4een
versions of the past goes along 4ith the development of some ,ind of self&schema, as
children begin to collect stories into some ,ind of personal history( 2he ability to vie4
one's life retrospectively is sophisticated, and (initially at least" follo4s adult guidance
in simpler conversations about the past(
Dicher definitions of AM, as developed in different 4ays, for e3ample, by John
Campbell, Christoph >oerl, and Josef )erner, drive strong pictures of the
philosophical significance of AM in self&conscious thin,ing( ?f true AM is memory of
4hat one sa4 and did, 4hen and 4here, conceived as having a particular past time at
4hich it too, place, then it re-uires the subAect to have a conception of the causal
connectedness of both physical obAects and the self( Children need to grasp that both
4orld and self have a history, on such vie4s, for genuine autobiographical
remembering to get off the ground( @or Campbell (1''$", this suggests that temporal
asymmetry is built in to AM, in that 4e are inevitably realists about the past,
conceiving of past events as being all, in principle, integratable on a single linear
temporal se-uence( Carious principles of plot construction thus ground our ordinary
AM practices* 4e assume, for e3ample, that the remembered ? has traced :a
continuous spatio&temporal route through all the narratives of memory, a route
continuous 4ith the present and future location of the remembering subAect:
(Campbell 1''$, p(11!"(
0e can, in mature AM, assign causal significance to specific events, so that our
temporal orientation is by particular times rather than simply by rhythms or phases(
@or >oerl (1''', pp(=!&$", this feature of our concept of time grounds our a4areness
of the singularity of events and especially of actions( 0e are thus :sensitive to the
irrevocability of certain acts:, so that 4e, unli,e other animals and (perhaps" some
severely amnesic patients, incorporate a sense of the uni-ueness and potential
significance of particular choices and actions into our plans and our conceptions of
ho4 to live(
2hese specific vie4s about the significance of AM may be some4hat over&
intellectualist( 2he psychological status of the putative principles of plot construction
needs clarification, and the sophistication of this cluster of allegedly interconnected
features of self&conscious thin,ing divides us from other animals to an e3tent 4hich
seems in some tension 4ith naturalism( ? s,etch this provocative line of thought here
merely to suggest 4hat is at sta,e in defining AM and investigating its development(
0ea,er accounts of the re-uirements for AM 4ill also have implications for the 4ay
4e thin, of the unity and continuity of personal identity (B"( Developmental evidence
may play an important part here, in suggesting 4ays of thin,ing about early temporal
representation, and about the origin of personal narratives, 4hich allo4 different roles
to the early narrative environment in understanding the relation bet4een memory and
language( 2o find a path through to this possibility, 4e need to step bac,, and
underta,e a ta3onomy of the tangled field of philosophical vie4s on the relation
bet4een language and thought(
4. Language, thought, and memory: some anti-epressi!ist options
2he core information&processing assumption of cognitive science renders thought
ontologically independent of public language( 0hether your favoured picture of
mental representation has us thin,ing in an innate 5Mentalese6 or in some nonlinguistic
medium, the contents of mental representations are independent of the meaning of any
natural language utterances( 2o put the point differently, legitimate disagreements
within cognitive science over the -uestion of 4hether thin,ing is itself linguistic in
form have coe3isted 4ith general consensus that the ,ey function of language is to act
as a conduit or channel for the communication of thoughts ($"( ?6ll call the thesis that
thin,ing is itself linguistic in form 5lingualism6, follo4ing John )reston (1''$, p(1"
(E"9 and ?6ll call the independent thesis that (to put it strongly" the primary function of
language is (merely" to e3press or communicate thoughts 5e3pressivism6, follo4ing
Christopher Fau,er (1'''" ('"( ?t6s important to stress that there are also many
intermediate vie4s on each -uestion(
Fiven this division of the issues, ? 4ill first point out that the general e3pressivist
consensus has recently come under attac,( ?6ll outline some varieties of anti&
e3pressivism, the vie4 that public language has important functions (notably cognitive
functions" 4hich are additional to its communicative functions( 2here are both
lingualist and anti&lingualist routes to anti&e3pressivist cognitive conceptions of
language( ?t6s on this latter combination (anti&lingualism and anti&e3pressivism", as
defended by Andy Clar, and others sympathetic to recent dynamical movements in
cognitive science, that ? 4ant to focus(
Again, ?6m not here arguing against e3pressivism, but simply pointing out some anti&
e3pressivist options 4hich are in fact compatible 4ith certain strands of cognitive
science( ?n particular, the current developmental psychology of AM suggests a fairly
strong variety of anti&e3pressivism( +ut if that6s so, and if in this domain at least it
turns out to be fruitful to reAect e3pressivism, 4e can then as, 4hether the particular
cognitive roles of language 4hich influence autobiographical memory sit better 4ith a
lingualist or an anti&lingualist conception of the nature of representation in AM( As
?6ve said, lingualism and e3pressivism are -uite independent theses, and an anti&
e3pressivist can consistently opt either for lingualism or for its denial( +ut ?6ll suggest
that, to the e3tent they have ta,en a vie4 at all, developmental psychologists of
memory have in fact too easily slipped into lingualism( 0ith a clearer picture of the
conceptual terrain in play, it is e-ually plausible to interpret their variety of anti&
e3pressivism as being also anti&lingualist(
An anti&e3pressivist, then, is someone 4ho thin,s that language has some direct roles
to play in cognitive processing, over and above its obvious e3pressive functions (1!"(
Some argue that thought conceptually depends on language( @or Fau,er (1'''", for
instance, the essence of intentional states lies :in the role that tal, of intentional states
plays in the conduct of productive conversation:* the primary function of thought, one
might say, is to aid and abet language, rather than the reverse( As Fau,er6s claim
suggests, such a priori reAections of e3pressivism tend to be anti&realist about the
mental, and thus to sit in some tension 4ith the cognitive scientific proAect, and 4ith
any in-uiry into thought in non&human animals( +ut there are also empirically&
grounded routes to anti&e3pressivism( )eter Carruthers, for instance, argues that
natural language is the medium of conscious propositional conceptual thin,ing, and of
domain&general thought and inference (!!1, sections =&B"( Carruthers thus sees
thought as conceptually independent of language, and allo4s that much thin,ing can
occur 4ithout language* but he claims that a modularist ta,e on cognitive processing,
combined 4ith attention to recent evidence about the integration of information across
domains, suggests that as a matter of fact certain ,inds of thin,ing re-uires natural
language( Carruthers6 particular route to anti&e3pressivism is, then, specifically one
4hich also commits him to lingualism(
Another lingualist route to anti&e3pressivism is the radical empiricist idea of language
as mind&structuring( Gn the vie4 sometimes denigrated as the 5Standard Social
Science Model6 of the mind ()in,er 1''B", thought is 4holly structured, in both form
and content, by the particular linguistic environment of the culture in 4hich the mind
gro4s( ?n controversies over colour naming, such vie4s suggested that colour
categories are entirely arbitrary labels, idiosyncratically derived in each linguistic
community, applied to a fundamentally unstructured colour space( +ut, as Carruthers
points out (!!1, section #", the idea of the mind as a socio&linguistic construction is
also implicit in Dennett6s (1''1" more biologically&grounded vie4 of the mind as a
virtual Joycean machine( @or Dennett, language coloni7es the mind, reprogramming or
altering the brain6s modes of representation so that 4e come to thin, in 4ays -uite
different from those in 4hich any creatures 4ithout language can thin,(
Many cognitive scientists have been uneasy 4ith the apparently relativistic
implications of strongly mind&structuring vie4s of language( ?t has proved difficult to
distinguish bet4een stronger and 4ea,er versions of the vie4, both in general and in
specific domains li,e colour and memory* but there is live evidence in support of
realistically 4ea,ened versions of the idea that there are certain specific linguistic
effects on perception, memory, problem&solving, inference, and so on (for a range of
vie4s see 8ay and 8empton 1'E=9 >unt and Agnoli 1''19 >ardin and +anaAi 1''#9
Lucy 1'''"( ?n the case of memory, the use of linguistic labels to remember (for
e3ample" visual forms can have a clear effect on 4hat is remembered, even 4hen the
labels have only an arbitrary relation to the shapes( And 4ell&established research on
misinformation and suggestibility sho4s that linguistic insertions can infect or bias
subse-uent recall of a visual scene (for a summary see >ardin and +anaAi 1''#,
pp(EE&'"(
0ith this modification of the more e3treme vie4 that language structures the mind, 4e
retain the core anti&e3pressivist idea that language has a 4hole range of direct
cognitive functions, influencing 4hat6s available for e3plicit memory, or pac,aging
and chun,ing information to aid encoding( Gn such modified vie4s, language need
not determine thin,ing, but may for e3ample afford various cognitive tendencies
(Lucy, 1'''"( +ut 4ith this ,ind of modification, 4e are shifting from lingualist
to4ards anti&lingualist varieties of anti&e3pressivism( And indeed this is precisely 4hat
Andy Clar, suggests in a series of commentaries on anti&e3pressivist vie4s (Clar,
1''B, 1''$ chapter 1!, forthcoming9 compare Jac,endoff 1''B"( Clar,6s 5supra&
communicative6 vie4 of language is that public language acts as a computation&
transforming instrument, not Aust e3pressing pre&e3isting thoughts but e3panding the
realm of the thin,able (Clar, 1''B, '#&="( 2his is the vie4 4hich, ? suggest, 4ould be
attractive to developmental theorists of autobiographical memory if they can accept
the shift from lingualist to anti&lingualist interpretations of their frame4or,(
". The supra-communicati!e !ie#
Motor development relies on adult help offered at particular moments, so that s,ills
such as 4al,ing and s4imming can later be performed independently( Similarly,
certain forms of cognitive development re-uire e3ternal aid H from the human and the
natural environment H in the course of learning ho4 to thin,, remember, or solve
problems independently( Most children learn similar motor s,ills, 4hen characteri7ed
broadly, but the idiosyncrasies of their particular developmental traAectory leave traces
on their habits, e3pertise, and patterns of action( Li,e4ise, different developmental
paths result in similar mature cognitive capacities, but the peculiar form of the
interpersonal scaffolding 4hich has been gradually internali7ed may leave traces in the
idiosyncrasies of their subse-uent cognitive performance (2helen and Smith, 1''=9
Clar, 1''$, chapter 9 Friffiths and Stot7, !!!"( 2his is an enabling cultural sculpting
of the child6s mind, 4hich runs alongside (and is intimately tangled 4ith" the
productive cultural shaping of their body, s,ills, and behaviour(
Andy Clar,6s use of these Cygots,ian themes is, as Carruthers notes, :a sort of
intermediate&strength version: (!!1, section (#", neither so mild as to slip bac, into
e3pressivism, nor so strong as to ma,e language actually restructure the mind( 2he
idea is significantly 4ea,er than Carruthers6, because it deals only 4ith the influence
of language on diachronically e3tended processes of thin,ing (or remembering" over
time* individual to,enings of mental representations still have their contents entirely
independent of any linguistic representation (Carruthers !!1, section (#"( ?n other
4ords, there is a clear distinction bet4een Clar,6s connectionist&inspired anti&
e3pressivism and the lingualist anti&e3pressivism of either Carruthers or e3treme
0horfians(
0ords, for Clar,, act as filters, labels, and other tools for thin,ing( Language is a ,ey
cognitive technology, 4hich transforms and reshapes computations( ?n particular, the
rendering of a thought in linguistic form helps to turn the thought into an obAect,
ma,ing it more stable, to be considered, reconsidered, and utili7ed on future occasions
(Clar, 1''B9 !!1a, pp(1=#&$"( 2his isn6t simply a matter of augmenting memory 4ith
e3ternal symbol systems9 in addition, it allo4s for self&criticism, and for using
thoughts about thought to help us then structure the (physical and social" 4orld in
4ays 4hich further aid our cognitive processes( As Clar, puts it, in ma,ing :designer
environments:, 4e are (individually and collectively" able to :ma,e the 4orld smart so
that 4e can be dumb in peace: (1''$, p(1E!9 !!1b"(
2he supra&communicative vie4 of language, then, is part of a more general vision of
the 5e3tended mind6* the vehicles of mental representation spread beyond the brain
and body into cognitive instruments and symbol systems, and perhaps other people6s
minds (Clar, and Chalmers 1''E"( 2he point is not that symbol systems outside the
mind are like our inner capacities, but that -uite disparate inner and outer elements can
be coopted simultaneously into integrated larger cognitive systems for particular
purposes (1''$, p(!9 !!1b"( ?nternal engrams lin, up in e3tended net4or,s 4ith
4hat Merlin Donald calls 5e3ograms6 4hich have -uite different properties (1''1,
#!E&#1'9 compare Do4lands 1''', chapter B", so that these temporary e3tended
systems must be studied by diverse sciences of the interface 4hich deal 4ith cognition
and media at once(
Again, my aim here is not to defend this perspective against obAections, but rather to
point out that it is a genuine alternative to both e3pressivism and lingualism( 2his is
4hy it is an attractive pac,age for thin,ing about the developmental psychology of
autobiographical memory(
$. %ocial interactionism and autobiographical memory de!elopment
2he relative roles of language and culture, temporal representation, theory of mind and
metarepresentational capacities, and self&schemata in the development of
autobiographical memory are not at all clear( Gn the 5social&interactionist6 vie4,
parental and cultural models or strategies for the recounting of past events act as initial
scaffolding on 4hich children start to hang their o4n memories( 2hey then internali7e
the forms and narrative conventions appropriate to their conte3t (/elson 1''#9 @ivush
1''19 /elson and @ivush !!!"(
2he point here is not that children cannot remember in solitude9 nor that they
remember only 4hat they tal, about9 nor that all their personal memories must ta,e
some narrative form (rather than, for instance, being isolated sensory memories"(
Dather, the point is that both shared and inner reminiscing alters the form and the
content of subse-uent AMs( 2hrough shared tal, about the past, children learn both the
appropriate forms for recollective reports, and the social functions of such tal,(
Cariations in narrative practices may then reappear in the subAective idiosyncrasies of
early remembering as children begin both to develop a life history and to be able to
tell others 4hat they are li,e(
Cultural variations in the nature and conte3ts of tal, about the past, and intracultural
variation in the motivations for and the richness of specific ,inds of remembered
narratives, have been investigated in some detail 4ithin this tradition( ?n general, the
children of parents 4ho engage in more 5elaborative6 and less repetitive or pragmatic
conversation about the past 4ill themselves spontaneously produce richer narratives(
?n America at least, mothers and fathers on average tal, more elaboratively about the
past, and 4ith more emotional content, 4ith girls than 4ith boys (Deese, >aden, and
@ivush, 1''#9 @ivush 1''="( 2his may be related to the fact that, on average, 4omen
across cultures report earlier and richer memories from childhood than do men
(MacDonald, .esiliana, and >ayne !!!"( Cultural style too affects memory over time
too( Caucasian American mothers and children tal, more about the role of the self in
past episodes than do 8orean dyads, and the Americans also include a higher
proportion of references to their o4n and others6 emotional states in narrating the past
(Mullen and Ii 1''%"(
Many intricate issues arise in interpreting this flourishing social&interactionist research
tradition (11"( ?n particular, the e3tent to 4hich these individual and cultural variations
have any longer&term influences on later AM is not clear( ? 4ill raise my simpler
concern after briefly mentioning some alternative perspectives( Some 4ho offer rich
definitions of genuine AM argue that the full&blo4n capacity does not emerge until
around the age of =* this is 4hen the child6s theory of mind develops sufficient
sophistication to understand that some forms of ,no4ledge derive causally from
specific past episodes 4hich have been personally e3perienced ()erner and Duffman
1''%, )erner !!!"( 2his account may yet be compatible 4ith a social&interactionist
picture of the earlier, component stages of AM development(
A more direct competitor to social&interactionism is the 5self&recognition6 approach
(>o4e and Courage 1''$"( Gn this vie4, the personali7ation of event memory
re-uires the emergence of the 5cognitive self6 usually late in the
nd
year( 2he
emergence of AM is :controlled by the discovery of the cognitive self:, 4hich can
then organi7e information by reference to goals9 and the development of AM is then
controlled by :increases in the ability to maintain information in memory storage:(
?nfantile amnesia is due not to any memory deficit but to the lac, of a personal frame
of reference( @or >o4e and Courage, language thus plays only an ancillary, e3pressive
role in communicating memories( 2he individual differences in early AM 4hich the
social&interactionists study are li,ely, they argue, to be :related to maturational, not
social or e3periential, factors: (1''$, p(%1%"( ?gnoring direct challenges to the self&
recognition approach (1"( Although Con4ay and )leydell&)earce (!!!, p($'"
suggest that their related model, 4hich relies on the development of a 5self&memory
system6 to drive early AM, is not incompatible 4ith moderate versions of social&
interactionism, there is at least one particular point of tension bet4een the traditions(
2here may be a variety of strong interactions bet4een individual and shared
reminiscence, as the social&interactionists argue( +ut this does not mean that the
child6s developing internal representations are a straightforward proAection or
internali7ation of the shared narratives( @ivush and her colleagues occasionally 4rite
as if the format of autobiographical memory is itself linguistic or language&li,e, as if
children simply incorporate the forms and contents of local e3ternal narratives(
@ollo4ing Cygots,y, @ivush argues that :the narrative forms that children are learning
to organi7e their recounting of past e3periences are also used for organi7ing their
internal representations of past e3periences: (1''=*1#E"( 2his is possible, but the
argument slides too -uic,ly to4ards a lingualist conception of mental representation(
Gne might compare the 4ay in 4hich the sociologist of collective memory Maurice
>alb4achs slips from the claim that memories are not preserved :in some noo, of my
mind to 4hich ? alone have access, for they are recalled to me e3ternally: to the
different, more lingualist claim that :one cannot thin, about the events of one6s past
4ithout discoursing about them: (1'%J1'', p(#E, p(%#9 Sutton !!, section ="(
2here are legitimate intermediate positions( 0e can accept that 4hat )eggy Miller
calls the :distribution of storytelling rights: in a culture or in a family may strongly
influence the uses and the contents of individual memories (Miller et al 1''!", 4ithout
having to assume that either the format or the organi7ation of those individual
memories is literally linguistic or narrative(
2he problem here is partly methodological, in that there are no clear nonverbal
measures of AM( ?t is in general very hard to find non&linguistic 4ays of thin,ing
about personal narratives( 2hus there is al4ays a danger, in the social&interactionist
tradition, of mista,ing 4hat are primarily early linguistic proficiency or narrative
s,ills for more specific mnemonic abilities( As >o4e and Courage complain, :the
e3pression need not be isomorphic 4ith the memory representation: (1''$, p(%!%"(
2he social interactionists address the problem by see,ing to correct for the total
amount of tal,, so that a case can be made that memory is independent of linguistic
s,ill( >arley and Deese (1'''" also suggest that event se-uencing tas,s (action
se-uences, such as those involved in acting out a picnic or a train ride" are a nonverbal
analogue of narrative structure in AM(
+ut there is also a richer, more theoretically&grounded, 4ay of averting such criticism(
2his 4ould re-uire an e3plicit commitment to some anti&lingualist vision of mental
representation, such as that offered by Clar,( 2o the e3tent that the social
interactionists have been a4are of anti&lingualist options (such as connectionist
accounts of mental representation", they have perhaps seen them as too e3pressivist,
and as re-uiring an individualist vision of the vehicles of representation as solely in
the head( 2he supra&communicative vie4, though, demonstrates that anti&lingualists
can also be anti&e3pressivists( ?t remains, then, to suggest Aust ho4 this combination of
vie4s might be fruitful in understanding the development of AM(
&. To#ards a de!elopmental systems !ie#: internali'ation and self-regulation
>arley and Deese (1'''" ma,e the further claim that their evidence sho4s the
e3istence of different path4ays to early AM( Children 4ho are early self&recogni7ers
(according to the self&recognition tests described by >o4e and Courage 1''$" may
find their 4ay to AM in a fashion that is rather more independent of the linguistic
environment( Late self&recogni7ers, in contrast, may need to use linguistic and
narrative scaffolding to achieve similar outcomes in the AM system( )arental
reminiscence style and self&recognition, then, may predict different aspects of tal,
about the past (1''', p(1#=%"(
0hatever the merits of this particular pluralist proposal, the general line of thought is highly
suggestive( 2he notion that typical or regular outcomes result from reciprocal interaction
bet4een different elements of an e3tended developmental system is already enough to
challenge >o4e and Courage6s e3clusive focus on :maturational: over :social or e3periential:
factors in the development of AM( 2o put this in the terms suggested by )aul Friffiths6
general account of developmental systems theory, any 5inheritance6 of cognitive capacities
needs to be seen as itself e3tended (in Clar,6s sense"( 2he physical, social, and narrative
environments are all reliably recurrent under normal conditions (Friffiths, forthcoming9
compare Friffiths and Stot7 !!!, Clar, !!1b"( 2he idiosyncratic features of individual AM
are constructed in each generation, through a comple3 interaction of a 4ide range of internal
and e3ternal parameters( AM is already :cultural: in the toddler years (/elson and @ivush
!!!, p('"( Deference to :innate: or :maturational: processes in the study of cognitive
development is thus little more than a promissory note for the future progress of sciences of
the interface(
2he primary theoretical tas, for the social interactionists, then, in addition to pursuing
integrated pluralist models of the development of AM (compare 0elch&Doss, 1''%", is in
trying to clarify Aust 4hat AM is. 0hat could it mean to say that AM is in some sense
influenced or even structured by the local narrative environment, if this is not to mean that
representation in AM is itself linguistic in form; >o4 e3actly do particular genre&related
cultural norms and narratives sculpt AM, if those norms and narratives are not simply
do4nloaded into the mind; 0hat ,ind of constrained free play, or regulated improvisation, is
there in the relation bet4een narrative tradition and the process of learning to remember;
?n a line of thought entirely compatible 4ith Clar,6s supra&communicative vie4, Duth
Milli,an sees :the stabili7ing hand of language: as its ,ey cognitive role, enabling us both to
learn comple3 concepts, and to reidentify the obAects of those concepts :in the flesh: (!!1,
pp(1B=&%"( 2al, about the past, in particular, 4hether interpersonal or in the form of private
inner speech, is one e3ample of this process as turned in4ards( 2he repeated recovery of
episodes of the personal past in certain ,inds of intentional retrieval, for e3ample, may turn
out to depend strongly on the role of language in AM( @or Clar,, by using 4ords to thin,
4ith, 4e artificially create an appro3imation of stable, conte3t&independent, abstract
representations for later inspection, manipulation, and shared attention( >ere the mental item
4hich is stabili7ed is a perspective on the personal past( ?t may be by utili7ing local narrative
resources to :free7e: thoughts about the past in this 4ay (compare Clar,, 1''$, p(1!" that
children develop the perspective&s4itching abilities 4hich allo4 them to understand that
others have different perspectives on the same once&occupied time(
2he verbali7ing of thoughts about the past may change their content (1#"* and the particular
4ays in 4hich this occurs in childhood involve the internali7ation of locally&available
cognitive props or pivots 4ith 4hich 4e slo4ly master and civili7e our o4n brains (compare
Dennett !!!"( 0e simply don6t yet ,no4 enough about the developmental and personality
psychology of memory to have any clear idea of the long&term effects on AM of individual
cognitive traAectories in development( 2he particular cultural, parental, and institutional
learning aids 4hich scaffold the development of AM are, in a 4ay, deeply contingent( Self&
regulation 4ithin a culture involves the active construction of personal life stories in
processes 4hich combine reproduction and tradition 4ith variation and inconsistency
(compare Strauss and Kuinn 1''$, chapter #"(
2here are a number of integrative options for ta,ing these interdisciplinary speculations
further( Decent neuroimaging studies of episodic memory might offer one 4ay of testing
specific developmental hypotheses about the causal paths of AM ac-uisition( Cognitive
ethological studies of temporal representation in creatures 4ithout self&schemata can
investigate 4hat memory systems might nonetheless be in common( Cognitive
neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric case studies might reveal some patterns of
brea,do4n in the relation bet4een individual brains and the narrative environment( <ven if
neurobiologists and narrative theorists are not studying the same phenomena, the idea of
constructing a positive frame4or, in 4hich their different investigations into memory might
be located may one day loo, a little less hopeless(
(c)no#ledgements
Many than,s to Maria 2rochatos for research assistance on this proAect( <arlier versions of
this paper 4ere presented in Melbourne and Sydney* my than,s for helpful -uestions and
criticisms to Sally Andre4s, 0illiam Armour, Samir Chopra, Jim @ran,lin, Jeannette 8ennett,
Sandra Lynch, Steve Matthe4s, Doris Mc?l4ain, and @red 0estbroo,(
*ootnotes
1( Decisions on ho4 to describe autobiographical memory relate to difficult theoretical issues,
notably about time and memory (section # belo4", but also about the relations bet4een
autobiographical and episodic memory, and about memory in non&human animals(
Autobiographical and episodic memory may come apart* ? can have semantic memory for
autobiographical facts, and on some vie4s (/elson, 1''#" autobiographical memories are
only a particularly significant subset of episodic memories( +ut in this paper ? discuss the core
cases in 4hich the categories overlap( @or more discussion see section # belo4 and Sutton
!!( @or a range of vie4s about memory in other animals see Campbell (1''=, pp(#$&=1, B=&
$1", Friffiths, D( et al (1'''", 2omasello (1''', pp(1=&%", Dennett (!!!", McCormac,
(!!1"( (+ac, to te3t"
( Although ? only discuss possible cognitive effects of language on memory here, the vie4
developed should also encourage attention to practical and non&linguistic influences of the
interpersonal and material environment on individual memory( (+ac, to te3t"
#( 2o the best of my ,no4ledge, there is no specific discussion of the developmental
psychology of memory in the 4or, of Clar, or his follo4ers( /or do the developmentalists
studying AM refer to the general cognitive conception of language, the related 5e3tended
mind6 hypothesis, or to cognitive scientific debates about mental representation in general(
(+ac, to te3t"
=( 2his e3ample is given an anti&reductionist spin by Fold and StolAar (1'''", 4ho do not
refer to +ic,le or Schaffner6s interpretations( 2heir vision of reductionism is closer to a
classical unity&of&science model( 2he fact that this ,ind of reduction is ruled out by continued
reliance on psychological&level terms li,e 5habituation6 and 5sensiti7ation6 in the putatively
reducing theory does not, ho4ever, tell against 4ea,er 5ne4&4ave6 conceptions of 5patchy6
reduction( (+ac, to te3t"
%( 2here are of course also a range of memory phenomena before language* for surveys of the
methods used to study memory in infants, and current thin,ing about the results, see Mandler
and McDonough 1''$9 Dovee&Collier and >ayne !!!( (+ac, to te3t"
B( Campbell argues that his vie4s are compatible 4ith empirical evidence of the fragmented
or gappy nature of memory narratives (1''$, p(1!$"( )hilosophers 4ho see the self as less
stable and integrated need in response to do more than point to psychological consensus about
the selective nature of AM (as does Schechtman 1''="* an alternative psychology of narrative
time in AM is re-uired( (+ac, to te3t"
$( So, for e3ample, @odor (1'''" and Cummins (1''B", 4hile disagreeing on almost
everything else about mental representation, both see public language as primarily in the
communication business, and does not (Cummins" or may not (@odor" even genuinely
represent at all( +oth, in the current terminology, are e3pressivists* but @odor is, 4hile
Cummins is not, also a lingualist( @ull&blo4n e3pressivism is a firmly non&cognitive
conception of language in the sense that it gives language no significant cognitive role( (+ac,
to te3t"
E( )reston (1''$, p(1" -uotes Socrates6 account of thought as La tal, 4hich the soul has 4ith
itself about the obAects under its considerationM ()lato, 2heaetetus 1E'e"( As )reston
ac,no4ledges, lingualism can come in many different forms* in particular, lingualists disagree
about 4hether the medium of thin,ing is natural language (Carruthers 1''B, chapter 9 !!1"
or a -uite different language of thought (@odor 1'$%"( (+ac, to te3t"
'( ?n Fau,er (1''=" 5e3pressivism6 is called Lthe Loc,ean theory of communicationM( (+ac,
to te3t"
1!( @or a nicely detailed ta3onomy of 4ea,er and stronger 4ays of reAecting e3pressivism,
thus understood, see Carruthers !!1, sections &#( (+ac, to te3t"
11( +loom and 8eil (!!1" offer a sceptical methodological and theoretical analysis of a range
of claims about the effects of language on thought( +ut they see this social&interactionist 4or,
on AM development as one area in 4hich both language&general and language&specific effects
of narrative on the format of memory may be successfully demonstrated (p(#B1, p(#B="( (+ac,
to te3t"
1( Gne such challenge focusses on the self&recognition mirror test for the development of a
self&schema( 2he 5self&recognition6 theorists rely on this being a genuine test for ,no4ledge of
self, rather than for ,no4ledge of mirrors( >o4e and Courage (1''$" include a helpful
discussion of cross&cultural evidence( (+ac, to te3t"
1#( L0hat may have been inchoate becomes se-uential( 0hat 4as fleeting ta,es on
substanceM (<ngel 1''', p(11"( (+ac, to te3t"
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