What’s your earliest memory? Your first day at nursery? Your younger sibling being born? Your 3rd birthday party?
One of our study directors Pasco’s first memory was from when he banged his head on a shop window and had to have stitches. He was about 3 and a half. Although it might sound like a scary memory, the most vivid aspect actually was of the nurses handing him his stitches in a little matchbox after they had taken them out – he was well chuffed! Jean, from the Generation New Era study team, recalls that one of her earliest memories was being lifted high enough by her father to grab some tamarinds from her neighbour’s tree. The age at which these early memories occurred is quite typical, considering most people are unable to remember anything that happened before the age of 2 or 3.
Our inability to remember events from the first few years of life is called infantile amnesia. And scientist are still not certain as to why this phenomenon happens, though there are a few theories.
One theory is that the region of the brain that is responsible for storing these memories is not sufficiently developed until about 2 years old. Another is that before the age of two, humans do not have a developed sense of self – this is demonstrated using the Rouge Test which we will cover in another article in a few weeks. A sense of self is thought to be crucial when forming memories about your own experiences. And a third theory is that before the age of 2 years, language is not sufficiently developed to explain the experience in a way that can be later recalled.
A key thing is that memories of our early life are autobiographical, episodic memories, they are memories of events that a person has experienced. But just because we cannot recall these types of memories from infancy doesn’t mean babies don’t form any kind of memories. In fact, we know they do, because they are learning so much during this time, about routines, words, language, and the people around them, including you!