номер 5, страница 18 - гдз по английскому языку 5-11 класс учебник Latham-Koenig, Oxenden

Host: Good afternoon, and welcome to Mind over Matter, our regular program about psychology and mental health. Today, we're going to be looking at childhood memories.

Host: Yes, and we'll be investigating where people's first memories come from and hear a story about the famous Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. But first, let's hear some early childhood memories sent in by our listeners.

My, uh, my earliest memory, I must have been about three, I guess, possibly two, was, uh, when we'd been to a, to a funfair and I would have gone with my brother, who's a bit older than me and my parents, and I'd been bought a, uh, a helium balloon and for some reason the balloon had a snowman inside it. Um, it was only September. I don't know why there was a snowman, but, but there was. Um, and I took it out into the back garden and it, because it was full of helium, obviously, it was pulling on the string. It wanted to, to fly away. Um, and I let go. I, I didn't let go by accident. I remember letting go on purpose, um, to see what would happen. And of course, what happened was the balloon flew up into the sky over the neighbor's trees and disappeared. Um, and I was absolutely devastated, heartbroken by the loss of the balloon and stood there crying and crying and my dad had to go back to the funfair and get me another identical balloon, which did nothing to console me. I kept crying and crying and crying and that's my, my earliest memory. Not a very happy one.

My earliest memory is probably from when I was about three or four years old and it was Christmas and I was at my nanan's house with, um, all my family and my uncle was reading to me. He was reading The Little Mermaid, except that he was making it up. He wasn't actually reading the words in the book. He was just saying things like, "Ariel went to buy some fish and chips" and things like that. Um, and that made me quite annoyed because I was at an age where I couldn't really read myself, but I knew that he was reading it wrong. Uh, so I got quite annoyed with him and told him to read it properly. Um, but yeah, that's my earliest memory.

So, um, my earliest memory. Um, I think I was around two or two and a half anyway, something like that. Um, I, I know that because we were living in a house, um, that my parents lived in before we moved to the house that we lived in for the rest of our lives. Um, anyway, it was Christmas time, um, uh, because I remember there was a Christmas tree in the corner of the room, of the living room. Um, and I remember the carpet. It was a sort of, it was kind of like a dark green check, um, and all the sort of glowing of the baubles on the Christmas tree. Um, anyway, I remember my mum putting up these Christmas decorations, new they were, onto the Christmas tree, these new baubles. Um, they were made out of glass. Um, and, um, and then she had to go out of the room for something. And I remember taking one of these new glass baubles in my hand and I remember putting my finger into the glass and breaking one of them. Um, I don't really know why I did it. Anyway, then my mum came back into the room and I remember her shouting at me, um, and being really angry because I'd broken one of these new baubles. Um, and I remember feeling actually quite resentful at the time because I didn't really think it was a bad thing to do.

2.4

Part two.

Speaker 1: So, what age do most people's first memories come from? And are our first memories reliable, or are they sometimes based on something people have told us? John's been looking at some of the research into how our memories work. Let's start at the beginning then, John. At what age do first memories generally occur?

John: Well, uh according to research, eighty percent of our first memories are of things which happened to us between the ages of two and four. Uh in fact, a large study by Professor Martin Conway in two thousand eighteen concluded that it's impossible to remember events from before the age of two.

Speaker 1: That's interesting, because a lot of people would say they do have earlier memories.

John: Yes. In fact, the two thousand eighteen study asked six thousand people for their earliest memories, and around forty percent of them said they remembered being in their pram or cot, or the first time they walked, or the first word they spoke. But according to research, that just isn't possible.

Speaker 1: Hmm, why is that?

John: There seem to be three main reasons. The first is that before the age of two, children don't have a clear sense of themselves as individuals. They can't usually identify themselves in a photo. Uh and you know how a very small child enjoys seeing himself in a mirror, but he doesn't actually realize that the person he can see is him. Children of this age also have problems with the pronouns I and you. And a memory without I is impossible. We can't begin to have memories until we have an awareness of self.

Speaker 1: And the second reason?

John: The second reason is related to language. According to research, first memories coincide with the development of linguistic skills, uh with a child learning to talk. And as far as memory is concerned, it's essential for a child to be able to use the past tense, so that he or she can talk about something that happened in the past and then remember it. And finally, it seems that the part of the brain needed for memories to form doesn't function fully until a few years after birth.

Speaker 1: And what are first memories normally about? I mean, is it possible to generalize at all?

John: Early memories seem to be related to strong emotions, such as happiness, unhappiness, pain, and surprise. Research suggests that three quarters of first memories are related to fear, to frightening experiences like being left alone, or a large dog, or having an accident, things like falling off a swing in a park. And of course, this makes sense and bears out the evolutionary theory that the human memory is linked to self-preservation. You remember these things in order to be prepared if they happen again, so that you can protect yourself.

Speaker 1: So, are first memories only related to emotions, or are there any specific events that tend to become first memories?

John: The events that are most often remembered, and these are always related to one of the emotions I mentioned before, are the birth of a baby brother or sister, a death, or a family visit. Another interesting aspect is that first memories tend to be very visual. They're almost invariably described as pictures, not smells or sounds. For example, festive celebrations with bright lights are mentioned quite frequently.

Speaker 1: Is it true that first memories are often unreliable, in that sometimes they're not real memories, just things our families have told us about ourselves, or that we've seen in photos?

John: Absolutely. As I said, some people insist that their first memories are of learning to walk or sitting in a pram. But it's very unlikely that they would form such early memories for all the reasons I've mentioned. But family stories can definitely be incorporated into our memory. So if your mother tells you the first word you ever said, over the years, that becomes your memory. You think you can remember it. A good example of that is the famous case of the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget.

Two point five.

Part three.

John: A good example of that is the famous case of the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget. In the eighteen nineties, when Piaget was a baby, his nanny used to take him for walks around Paris in his pram. Piaget had always thought that his first memory was of sitting in his pram as a two-year-old baby when a man tried to kidnap him. He remembered exactly where it happened, on the Champs-Élysées. He remembered his nanny fighting the kidnapper, and he could remember a policeman appearing and the man running away. The nanny was then given a watch as a reward by Jean's parents. But many years later, when Piaget was fifteen, his parents received a letter from the nanny, in which she returned the watch to them. The nanny confessed that she'd made up the whole story, and that was why she was returning the watch. Of course, Jean had heard the story told so many times that he was convinced that he'd remembered the whole incident.

Interviewer: That's fascinating. Thank you very much, John.