Why don't we remember our childhood?
Often when we become adults, we do not remember our childhood. Even I at the age of 16 can't tell you exactly about my life when I was 2 to 3 years of age. My memories started becoming strong at about 6 to 7 years of age. The earliest event I remember by myself is infact my 6th birthday when my parents gifted me a bicycle. But I don't remember much, if anything, before that. And if you're like most people, you don't either.
But why does this happen? Even if you think you remember early childhood, are you sure they're actual memories and not just stories you've heard? Why do we forget our childhood? Why don't we remember being babies?
Most adults can't recall life's earliest moments unless the events are reinforced by others who often retell them, or the memories are triggered by photographs or other cues. It's a phenomenon scientists call childhood amnesia. While you may have been able to recall and describe your 6th birthday party in great detail for months after it happened, a year later those memories may have faded and, eventually, are lost altogether.
Over a century later, psychologists still do not fully understand why childhood amnesia occurs. However, advanced studies of children's brains over the last two decades have given researchers some new ideas about what might be going on.
Early researchers believed that children didn't have fully-developed structures in their brains to allow them to retain data. Over time, however, it became clear that children might so bear in mind several things, like who their parents are, where they live, etc. and remember basic facts within the moment like this can be referred to as long-term memory.
What specialists currently believe children lack at associate early age is LTM, that is memory of the small print of a particular event. Scientists currently theorize that children's brains early in life cannot operate in a very manner that groups data along into the advanced neural patterns we have a tendency to decision recollections.
The brain stores items of recollections in many components of its surface, additionally referred to as cortexes. for instance, the visual components of a memory would be hold on within the visual cortexes, whereas sounds would be hold on within the audible cortexes.
Another region of the brain, referred to as the hippocampus, works to tie along all the scattered items of memory contained throughout the assorted cortexes. The memory you've got of a specific event is that the neural pattern of all the linkages between the assorted components of the brain wherever the items of the memory hold on.
Researchers believe the hippocampus doesn't develop and start linking along numerous items of knowledge into recollections till someday between the ages of 2 and 4. As a result, children don't remember long-term memory up till that point like their first birthday!
Although it might be cool to own recollections from our earliest days, researchers believe things have discovered for the most effective. They believe that early LTM may be too distracting at associate early age once we're still attempting to work out.
So that's it. Some brain movements and developments restrict us from remembering our childhood. However, we still dip ourselves some or the other day in the good old days, when we did weird things!
Hey! If you liked this post, you know what to do. Share it with your friends, and keep reading from one of the popular articles below.
Posts before October 2021 have been marked as "Old Posts". Less likely, but they might have out dated or incorrect information, ugly looking bits of code, no labels, etc. Don't get me wrong, many of these posts are top-notch and interesting too.
I thought it would be better not to delete or revamp these posts, even if they suck. The bitter truth is that old works always suck, but I take that as a positive tool to convey that I am growing. Besides there's no better way to showcase my journey without these old, messy, poorly written posts!
I thought it would be better not to delete or revamp these posts, even if they suck. The bitter truth is that old works always suck, but I take that as a positive tool to convey that I am growing. Besides there's no better way to showcase my journey without these old, messy, poorly written posts!
Old Post