Why don't we remember our first years of life?

Question

I can't remember anything earlier than the age of four. I gather this is pretty much the norm. So what's the scientific explanation? Or do you have a theory of your own?

Answer 1

Jean Piaget, discovered that our earliest cognitive development was, what he coined, Sensorimotor stage.In this stage the infant uses a conceptual framework to make sense of the world only through the senses. The infant is also lacking of object permanenece, which is like "out of sight, out of mind". The child cannot process that anything exists without it interacting with it. I fthe object goes away, it never was or is.

so throughout this seemingly pointless informational prelude, my question is,"How can you remember things, events, people or occasions, if they ceased to exist the moment you lost interest in them? If you cannot touch them to allow that to reexist?" This explains why babies are so interested insomething they saw for 12minutes, didn't for 8 seconds and now see again.

But as for the fact that it lasts over to about four I cannot say. My memory puts me at 2. So I assume it's different for everyone.

Answer 2

A newborn's brain works more slowly than an adult's because it is still undergoing rapid myelination of nerve cell axons - myelination is quite similiar to the coating on network cables. Perhaps the slow processing is too slow to absorb everything the baby sees, hears and feels. Babies also undergo rapid 'pruning' of synapses which are not needed. As you may know, synapses have better network to each other only if they are used more often, just like you won't recall certain history facts that you learnt long ago easily.
The notion of early childhood memory remains controversial because there is a high chance that the stories can be 'implanted' (told) by others when the child is older.

Answer 3

I remember a few snippets from when I was two (like the Christmas morning when I got a certain doll, riding in my car seat and fussing over the wool bonnet tie that made my neck itch and how my mother didn't like my fussing over it, climbing a very high slide ladder and being afraid to then slide down...).

Here are my guesses:

1. It was a long time ago.

2. The brain is doing most of its developing during the first two or three years of life. It may not have what it necessary to save any memories from before three or two.

3. Maybe the amount of "space" for memories is very small on a young child (like a computer without much room for storage). Maybe as new memories come they replace anything already stored because there may not be "room" to store it all. As the brain develops maybe more "storage space" comes with it.

4. When people have PTSD "flashbacks" their memory comes to them when they don't expect it. I've read where something goes on with the hippocampus and amygdala. If you assume that in a highly stressed or emotional or shocking situation the brain does something different with memories that seems to give them more "life" it would seem that a baby who is not stressed and not in a particularly noticeable or remarkable environment may have the reverse happen. Another thing is there is something where during an extremely traumatizing event the hippocampus and/or amygdala create a temporary amnesia. I wonder if there is the chance that because babies never quite know what's going on in the world around them life could be stressful enough (on a scaled down level, but their brain is also scaled down) that they would have a series of temporary amnesias.

5. Life for babies may just no be remarkable enough to give them points of reference for creating a certain types of memories. We remember things because we remember where we were, what we were eating, what our sister got for Christmas that year, what we were wearing, etc. Babies' lives may be so routine and so without the details and expansiveness of of older humans they may not offer enough to formulate and let gel a memory. (My example of being two and whining about the itchy bonnet is vivid to me because I was in a car seat, the car was hot on a sunny afternoon, my father's pipe smoke was making me even more nauseous than the mostly closed up hot car, the bonnet ribbon was itching and making me miserable, etc. There'a lot more to contribute to that memory than, say, had I been playing on a kitchen floor in the house I lived in until I was twelve.)

Those are my uneducated but thoughtful guesses.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

I do. I remember being bathed in the kitchen sink, teething on the crib and the way the paint tasted. I remember being placed in an upholstered velvet chair and almost being able to touch my head and toes on the arms, then being able to touch them; I knew I was growing. The great way my dad's pipe smoke smelled. A thousand memories more. I think I almost remember before being born. Really.

Why? I dunno ~ I can't tell ya what I had for dinner last week!

Answer 6

I think that's probably because our brains haven't been developed enough during the early years. It's like a computer with a low capacity, it can only fit so many things. Can you imagine if we can remember what it was like in our mother's womb? That would be so cool!

Answer 7

I think we do remember them, but it's in a way totally unlike our other memories, because it has no context. Think about it, if I read you a poem in chinese, would you remember any of it? It's the same way for when we were small, we heard people talk but had no sense of language, and we saw objects but had no idea what they could possibly be.

Answer 8

I would say its just because your brain is fully developed yet. You are learning SO much!!!!! That maybe your brain can't really store all the memories. And I remember certain things way back. It all depends.

Answer 9

Are you kidding? It was rainy and cold and windy and overcast when my parents took me home. I can remember a conversation two nurses were having and the doctors reaction to it when he gave me the once over and a clean bill of health. This was day 2. Of course I have a 999 level I.Q. You must not even qualify for Mensa. You might not even qualify to vote in most states. Maybe you are a droid and haven't figured it out yet.

Answer 10

Who wants to remember being breast-fed!! Youngest I remember`s like 4 years.I apparently nearly drowned when I was two and was floating face down,so just as well I dont recall that !!