

The great forgetting - prostoalex
http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/where-do-childrens-earliest-memories-go/

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erikb
After living about 24 years in a rather protected countryside setting I
decided to spend one year in China. This shocked me to some degree because it
completely changed my view on most things in this world. But it also made me
forget nearly everything from my years before I went to China. It's strange to
say this, but a grownup doesn't often come into situations where he needs to
recall specifics of his childhood. Therefore until now I never had a big
problem with that, although it makes me still uncomfortable years later.

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valar_m
I'm having trouble conceptualizing the idea of being unable to remember
anything before the age of 24. Can you expand on that?

For example, I can recall my time in high school and college -- both generally
and specific events -- rather well (I think). When you think back to those
times in your life, whether you were in school or doing something else, do you
just draw a blank?

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hippich
so from what i understand, speaking with simple terms (simply because i don't
know well topic :)) - any living being, including human, starts with "blank
brain" where a lot of interconnections exists and/or created easily. And since
memories are really "state" of this very complex system, most of things/events
remember-able simply blends and blurres during first few years of life.

For me this means two things - there is no way child will recall events from
first couple years of his life. So there is no need to try to show new places,
make him excited with particular event/thing. But in the same time, events
happening in these early years affects brain (and whole body) development as a
whole, so it is very important to make baby feel connected, safe, curious,
etc.

Or even simpler - first couple years define "North/South/West/East" directions
and then later brain develops within few "degrees" of this initial path.

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Lambdanaut
Sorta. Children don't form any memory of their early years because knowledge
only makes sense in context of other knowledge. Synapses have to have
something meaningful to connect to. Children don't have knowledge, so it's
difficult to form new memories in their minds because there's nothing in their
minds to connect the new memories to.

As children, our first memories are vitally important because they are quite
literally building the foundation for every memory that will come thereafter.

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thaumasiotes
Children don't form memories of their early years? How do children in their
early years recognize their parents?

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pedrosorio
I believe the parent is referring to episodic memory [1]. Of course we are
forming "memories" as we are making sense of the world since day 1 (and this
includes learning about our bodies).

The concept we usually refer to when speaking about "memories" is that of
episodic memories which have a lot of context associated with them. These
types of "memories" are formed and retained reliably mostly after children
reach school age [2].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episodic_memory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episodic_memory)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_development#Episodic_Mem...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_development#Episodic_Memory)

~~~
thaumasiotes
OK, early memories are commonly not retained, but parent specifically claimed
they're not formed, which is ludicrous. Ask a speaking child what happened
last week and they'll tell you. Show a non-speaking infant something with a
result they should be able to predict, and they'll be surprised if that result
doesn't happen.

Memories from your 30s are also commonly not retained, but I don't hear anyone
saying 35-year-olds can't form memories.

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redxblood
Heh, reminded me of Ishmael. Great book.

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jdalgetty
great essay!

