Angel Susantin (Week 4) - Amnesia of the Childhood Variety 👶
It’s kind of odd to ask a 6-month-old witness what happened at the scene of a burglary. Sure, they aren’t quite able to produce coherent sentences for their testimony, but according to some studies, babies as young as six months can form short-term memories that can be stored for a few minutes and long-term memories that may last for weeks. Seems standard, right? But ask that same person fifteen years later if they can recall the incident ever happening at all, and they may stare at you in disbelief.
It just seems like our earliest memories fade into oblivion—as if they never had happened and the only things assuring us we ever had a childhood may be pictures or your family’s word. Infantile amnesia, or childhood amnesia, maybe the answer to why. The more specific definition according to Wikipedia is the “inability of adults to [actively] retrieve episodic memories (memories of situations or events) before the age of two to four years, as well as the period before the age of ten of which some older adults retain fewer memories.”
We are unable to consciously recollect, more specifically, our earliest episodic memories (if I may remind you, are memories that, if retrieved from long-term storage, tell you how, where, and what happened in a certain experience). Scientists assume that this is because of an underdeveloped hippocampus in the infantile brain, which is therefore unable to keep those memories stored until adulthood.
What is fascinating is the idea of the critical learning period in childhood—which is a biologically determined time during early development (around 2 years of age) where a child is able to learn things essential to survival such as hearing, vision, social bonding, and language learning. So if we experience childhood amnesia, how are the skills we learn during critical learning periods functional during the rest of our lives? I would attribute this due to the fact that infants do a lot of implicit learning, which is learning without actively trying to remember the content and not much explicit learning. Therefore, babies can carry these skills they learned in critical periods unconsciously to their older selves. That’s pretty cool.
A side question: what are some things you never remember happening when you were a baby, but your family has told you that they happened?
https://www.simplypsychology.org/critical-period.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/13/health/childhood-memories-partner-wellness/index.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5473198/
Comments
I am as well surprised with the many things my parents told me but don't actually remember. I guess with the brain developing and such, the memories before the age of ten or infantile age are just the brain testing it's limits. Moreover, they are trials and errors the brain starts which I think helps for the development of it. As through reading your blog, thoughts flowed into my mind once again, and I would like to say that these memories that fade. They don't really fade into oblivion but are probably just hidden very into your brain or cut off during the upgrade. It is basically a switch from windows 10 to 11. It's just the appearance might be different with still the basic features of previous versions. I think that they are still there, just undeveloped or partial and dreams are the brain trying to restore the memory as complete.
First of all, your image is so funny. I love how at the bottom of it it says Pro Tip: A baby is never a reliable witness in court, no matter how much they know. That is so funny to me for no apparent reason. It’s crazy to think about the misconceptions that we used to have about babies, including what we used to believe about a babies’ memory. I find it so interesting how much babies learn in their first few years of life. Obviously, they seem like they are incapable of doing anything by themselves, but once you take into perspective the amount of things they learn every single day, it’s really amazing. Could you imagine having to learn important survival skills every single day? That’s basically what babies do. However, I must admit that it is really fun to mess with babies due to their lack of knowledge and skill. Have you ever messed with a baby?
When I was a baby, I went to Thailand, the Maldives, and Japan, but I don't remember any of that. Even when I look at pictures, I can't even remember small glimpses of any memory from that time. My mom, however, can remember many things from that time. Where I can only remember a few things from 5 years ago, my mom can remember things from 20+ years ago. I never knew that people can actually remember that much because I can't, but after reading your blog, I can assume that it has something to do with age. I hope in the future, I can also remember things that happened tens of years ago.
I think that the picture was so cute and funny. This entire blog post is like the answer to my question of why I barely remember anything before I was 5. I know for a fact that my uncles and aunts used to crowd me because I was the first grandchild in both families, but I don't remember my first birthday. Something that is weird is that I remember little things, but not huge things.
Sincerely,
Mrinmayee
Your drawings always #slay…though I do wish you added your signature amongus cat. I remember your every thoughts, your every memory. I remember every implicite thought you have forgotten. Maybe I have been stalking the outside of your house. I hear every thought, even your mother’s. Aside from those lil thoughts, you are so real angel. #Real. This blog is really deep too. I #relate to this blog!
#Bless,
Angus O. Cheng
When I was younger my parents and grandparents would often meet up and go out to national parks or other fun places for bonding. Although we have pictures of these events, I never remember experiencing any of the outings we had. As a family, we all went to Yosemite Park, but I never remembered going there nor hanging out with my cousins. Apparently, I was actually really good friends with one of my older cousins but I had no recall of even talking to her when I was younger. I guess that’s how infantile amnesia works!
Sincerely,
Faith Tong