ABSTRACT
Memory is not only the food of mental growth; it is the repository of our past that helps shape the essence of who we are. As such, it is of enduring fascination. We marvel at its resilience in some situations and its fragility in others. The origin of this extraordinary cognitive capacity in infancy and childhood is currently the focus of vigorous research and debate as we seek to understand the science of how human memory begins and how it changes with age. The beginning of the scientific study of memory development can be dated to the naturalistic observations of Darwin (1877) and Preyer (1882) whose case studies of their own children provided a database for subsequent experimental scrutiny. However, it was not until the 1970s that research on the development of memory came of age. This progress was due in part to a decline in the behaviorist zeitgeist that had dominated research in the first half of the 20th century and to the subsequent “cognitive revolution” that provided new models of memory based on information processing and neuroscience. Although much of the significant basic research was summarized in the first edition of this book (Cowan, 1997), the remarkable advances that have characterized the field over the past decade compelled us to undertake this thoroughly revised second edition.
