Image: JAMIE CARROLL iStockphoto
Why do children generally forget all their memories from before the age of three or four?
— E. Lawrence Langan III, Wynnewood, Pa.
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Image: JAMIE CARROLL iStockphoto
Why do children generally forget all their memories from before the age of three or four?
— E. Lawrence Langan III, Wynnewood, Pa.
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24 Comments
Add CommentI would guess that it has to do with language development, speaking from my personal experience, as I developed language skills early and I have memories from when I was two years old.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy earliest memory is of my first birthday party - being told to blow out the candles on the cake and then blowing them out.
In other words, my first memory involves speech.
I suspect it has something to do with a lack of development from the brain (possibly the limbic system)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPattern recognition reinforces the connections between neurons the more you process input. In addition, a growing brain at that age still hasn't developed all the necessary cells to scribe the observations of the senses for recall.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToo bad this is only an article preview; it would be nice to discuss in a public forum.
I didn't forget,not ALL, so I don't know. The memories I have were significant in various ways. I remember my father returning from overseas vividly, I was less that 3, they say but I know I could walk then, because all my older siblings ran inside behind him and left me to follow. I remember the taxi he came in, (something like a small station wagon with wood strips at the sides,) exactly where it stopped, and my older sisters excitement, (because I was puzzled by it.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have no memory of my father before that, although I'm told he'd only been gone for 2 weeks, (a teacher's organization sports tour.) I recall the color of the suit he was wearing, (pearl gray,) and that he did something I'd never seen anyone do before. He perched on the edge of the dining room table and put one foot on the floor, one on a chair, and he talked about someone who had been hit on the temple by a cricket ball. I didn't know where the temple was, but my sisters showed me.
Other significant life episodes remain vividly in my memory. The earliest of these was being in a blue cradle when someone, an aunt or godmother came in, and looked at me, which made me feel great for a while, like one of the crowd, and then they all turned their backs on me and walked out of the room, leaving me imprisoned there. That was so hard, not being able to join in. My family say that this memory is impossible, but I can remember it vividly, however brief.
I say all this to indicate that we remember things that have meaning to us in some form or another.
The theories in the article are all possible. I would suggest the development of language changes the way the brain indexes everything. Before an infant knows any language the brain still has to memorize the world and it is this structure or index that is forgotten, the memories are probably still there, what was lost was the how to access those memories, or possibly language and development of better indexing makes it no longer possible for the conscious mind to recognize those early memories.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey, Marcia Mollory, perhaps your memory is not so good! You would have had only one candle to blow out at your first birthday!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry Marcia about the spelling of your surname. Perhaps my short term memory is not so good either!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI remember all kinds of bassinet, crib, rug, toy and highchair memories. Some b'day, outdoor, church and store memories too. I know the then house's floorplan perfectly. Seems like thity-five years ago and I am 65. We moved from that house shortly after I turned three. I believe I remember being in the womb. It was dark with positional and surround feelings and vague basic awareness. Wish someone would see if those who remember like me are alike in some way. One thing I know that is different is that time passes more quickly for me than other people. I am always saying, "Was it really that long ago?" I also look younger than others my age.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImputing data into a new computer, downloading programs, saving pictures and music is much the same as a newly introduced human into a world of an infinite amount of knowledge. Every once in a while the brain needs to be defragmented. Sensory perception, over loads the brain to become acclimated to ones surroundings quickly. The type of information introduced to the starving brain determines the intelligent factor of the individual. Yet only through repetition of information can one learn. ☺☻
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have not read this issue; however, for me the question should be, "why should or would children generally recall any of their memories from before the age of three".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlacing any memories before 3, & not after, is often most difficult, even given you had possible such memories. One needs events that force a time frame. In my life, I have a few time frames that mandate a few memories had to be from before 3! It should be noted that these memories were recalled without any time reference or repeated focus. (These events were traumatic for both me and my mother, by the way).
oh bull
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnswer: The development of the Hypothalamus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe recycling the image into out of memory and in again again will fix it. If course emotional engagement will help preferable I think negative. Do children who go to early years schools recall more
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome people think they have memories before the age of 3, but picturing a what you think you saw, or imagining what an early event was like, can easily subfuse into a mental image that seems like an actual memory, but is actually a "false" memory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot all memories are lost from infancy. I told my mother that I recalled the time when my younger sister was born. My mother was sceptical but when I described the room, the other woman in the room, the pattern on her dress, the afternoon light, the bed I was lying on etc...my mother confirmed the detail. It remains quite vivid. I was 18 months old.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't quite know why this particular memory stands out
- and there are others but I can't pinpoint the time so well. There was no trauma associated with the event it's simply a vivid visual memory.
bmr
I've not read the issue. However I tend to think it has a lot to do with forming boundaries between yourself and the world around you. You must first develop a concept of self in order to identify memories of self. Call it "ego" formation, what have you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am quite surprised by this article and even the concept that it is based upon. It is well known that infant development is the time that normal humans gain the greatest amount of knowledge and information about themselves and their environment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThing such as eye-hand coordination, ability to suckle, recognizing sounds and touch, tactile response, walking, playing, potty training basic language skills, reaction to stimuli, etc etc, the list goes on and on and on.
It is also well know that the mind can only recall clearly so much data, the mind tries" to keep the most important and useful information and the rest is discarded or not stored with many synaptic connections.
Another thing is that memory is based upon the use of it. If you are one that has not used recall growing up things are likely to be more difficult to recall.
I have vivid and clear memories of things that happen to me at age three and later. Not a continuous track few if any have that but a clear recollection of events of events from age three and four and forward.
I feel this research is invalid and sho0uld have the purpose and process re-examined as to what is actually recalled from birth to say age four.
I think the results would prove more enlightening.
Once onboard our US Navy ship, sailing in calm seas, I joined my fellow shipmates in the weight-room to work out. Even thought the ship rocked gently, I suddenly lost control of the bench press, stop, and quickly sat up holding my left shoulder that had almost dislocated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI sat there staring into empty space holding my left arm in pain, when my shipmate said, "Rosario, you alright?"
To which I replied, "I remember. I remember. I remember…"
"You remember what?"
"I remember this pain..."
I suddenly remembered how my mother was forced to violently yank my left arm out of place, after I broke free from her grip running through the front door into the street. This was in the midst of the civil war of the capital city in Dominican Republic, where gunfire had invaded every street, including our own.
It was a time when for many months, we were obligated to sleep towards the back of the house with mattresses on the floor to avoid stray bullets. Everyone in the family handed me carefully for a week as I endured that same pain, before getting to a clinic to reset my shoulder. I learned that when this happened, my mortified mother was twenty-one, and I was almost two.
#rgcorrgk , personally I don't think it has to do with time framing. I still don't record based on time, but have many memories.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people don't believe me when I tell them, but I definitely have memories from the womb. The best I can describe it is that it is a sense of being combined with some sounds. These memories sort of scared me when I was around 3 years old; it seemed like a dream I had. Then one day a PBS special came on TV and it was the first time they had ever put a camera and microphone in a woman's womb. When I heard the sounds of the baby breathing the amniotic fluid and the mother's hearbeat I had a chill go up my spine as it was then that I realized what the memories actually were. It was me before being born. I also have images and memories of birth which felt very scary at the time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs that so? Well I definitely have memories from BEFORE the womb. People don't believe me either, but, yes, I can clearly recall drifting etherially in the fallopian tube just before that nasty sperm showed up and ruined everything. I tried to fight it off, but it was just too pointy. So my impossibly early memory makes me even more "special" than your impossibly early memory makes you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have memories of between the ages of two and three. All of my memories have to do with feeling strongly about something. I can remember starting to crawl up the stairs to the second floor apt and it was very dark when someone put on the hallway light and what a relief that was. I realized though that the second half the the stairway would be dark but there was something up there I wanted. After telling my mother this she told me that I would climb the stairs in the dark to go see my grandmother. I was two when she died. Another memory is going to my family's farm in NH and waking up from the car jolting on the dirt road and seeing white rose bushes and realizing where I was. I also remember another time because it was the first time I had chocolate milk in a little box and used a straw. I can remember entering the farmhouse kitchen through a screen door and my aunt telling me she had something for me and watching as she reached up on top of the fridge and brought down some dolls that I hadn't seen for a very long time (the previous summer) but that I recognized as mine. I was two because the farm was sold before I was three. Another memory is sitting in my father's recliner while my mother vaccuumed with the Flinstones on and my sister wanting to sit with me for some reason and my not wanting her to. My mother made me move over for her and I was angry. Very angry. When we moved to my hometown I had just turned three and I can remember meeting the neighbor girl next-door. All of there memories are similiar in that I was either surprised, angry,or relieved and that is why I believe I remember them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJean, I too believe I have a memory of the womb! I've never met anyone else who's remembered too. It was dark, yes, with a vague awareness without thought ... similar to meditation. I remember my mother's voice, more of a distinct, deep vibration traveling down than a full sound. One memory is of my hand, which was orange in the path of a light (coming through the skin) which was an unusual event at the time. I didn't think anything of it, didn't "know" it was my hand, just remember it now as such because of the shape. In the light that came through, also the darkness around me turned to dark red, and I could touch the red "wall" on the other side with my feet. This is the first memory I have of something other than myself, something "over there" as opposed to "here". Yet, there was no judgement of it as such. I wasn't conscious of that realisation. I was only conscious of the visual aspect, and that I could reach it physically. All this with no words, just images and a few sounds now and then, and physically being. Also, sleeping! I remember the strong urge to sleep, and somehow "felt" instinctively that it was good for me, sleeping while being nourished and growing. Not in so many thoughts, nor consciously formed thoughts, mind you ... somehow "preconscious" yet feeling this awareness through me. I use this memory to teach meditation!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRocketlauncher, I hear you! I too have memories from the womb like that!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this