Keeping Track of Individuals: Insights from Developmental Psychology

Abstract

According to Mammen and Mironenko (2015) our sensitivity to objects' history (i.e., objects' whereabouts across space and time) has been neglected in much of contemporary psychology. In this paper I present evidence from a developmental psychological perspective indicating that although the terminology is different, some research concerning these important issues has actually been conducted. First, research primarily under the heading 'essentialism' has shown that children are sensitive to at least some aspects of an object's history. Second, research on object individuation has revealed that for infants spatiotemporal information appears to have primacy relative to featural information. Finally, research on episodic development has provided evidence that a continuous (hence historical) sense of 'me' may be a necessary, although not sufficient, precondition in order to have episodic memories. It is argued that the available evidence converges, which only underscores the relevance and importance of the issues raised by Mammen and Mironenko (2015).

Keywords: Children; Development; Episodic memory; Essentialism; Infants; Object individuation; Objects’ history.