Armah A Quick Guide
Can you recall your childhood memories? What is your earliest childhood memory? Can you remember when you took your first step? or said your first word? Take some time and think about what you can remember when you were between the ages of 2-4 years old. Visualize the context and try to recall the exact details. Chances are you can remember a few images, how you acted, and one or two words, but not the entire context or the sequence of events that followed. This is because of a phenomenon called childhood amnesia.
What is Childhood Amnesia?
Most people can recall memories from their childhood but only to a certain point. No one can accurately remember the first three years of their life. Memories of situations or events before the age of 2-4 years are usually vague and hazy. Some people remember fragments of when they were one year old, but as they get older, they start to forget them.
The exact age of onset of childhood amnesia is unclear. Some researchers consider 3-4 years as the age when we can retrieve our earliest memory. Whereas others, think 2-7 years of age is a more accessible age bracket.
History of Childhood Amnesia
- In 1895, Caroline Miles first discovered the phenomena of childhood amnesia.
- Five years later, Henri and Henri (1900) reported that their study participants could not recall memories before the age of 2-4 years.
- Sigmund Freud coined the term ‘Infantile Amnesia’ to describe the lack of recall of childhood memories after conducting therapy sessions with mentally ill patients.
- Even animals exhibited the phenomenon of childhood amnesia according to some studies.
Since then, multiple researchers have studied this strange phenomenon.
The onset of childhood amnesia
Emotionally loaded events dominate the first three years of our lives. We learn to babble, crawl, talk and walk but cannot recall this period as we get older. A child can recall his/her past when he or is young but at age 11, the onset of childhood amnesia takes place. Childhood memories start fading away as the forgetting process gets triggered.
Studies show females may have more information-dense memories compared to males. Their earlier memories are more focused on other people and include negative events. Whereas, a male’s memories are more focused on themselves and on play events. Similarly, childhood amnesia also varies across cultures. Parents who repeat, discuss and elaborate on earlier memories with their children, strengthen their later recall.
Watch: [Why can’t we remember our childhood?]
Possible Explanations for why we forget our childhood
1. Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, children are obsessed with exploring their sexuality. Due to this, they often repress memories of sexual nature. He postulated this when his patients reported they could not remember anything before the age of 6. He also proposed that our minds repress early age trauma of sexual abuse to protect us from distress and negative emotions. Although Freud’s theory is not supported by scientific evidence, there is some support for the effect of trauma on memory formation i.e. stressful events affect our brain’s ability to form and recall memories.
2. Emotional content of early memories
Try to imagine what you felt in your earliest memory…
Research states that recall of early memories depends on the emotion associated with the particular event and one’s age at the time. For example, you may remember the birth of your sibling if it occurred after you were 3 years old. However, if it happened before you were 3, you may remember very little about the event. Similarly, you may not remember events like hospitalization, changing houses, or the death of a parent if they happened when you were too young.
3. Underdevelopment of the brain
Some studies attribute childhood amnesia to reduced neurological development in the early years. Particularly, the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, which are structures for storing autobiographical memory, are not fully developed when we are young. Due to that, we are unable to encode memories properly and retrieve them later on.
4. Reduced Language development
Since our language is underdeveloped before the age of 3, so the limited vocabulary of children affects how they encode memories. This explains why we can only remember images and not the context of our early memories. As we grow older, the development of language allows us to organize memories according to the past, present and emotional content. Thus, verbally encoded memories are retained and others are lost. Parents can help in this case by repeating and elaborating on early memories.
5. Cognitive self
Another explanation for childhood amnesia is related to the formation of the cognitive self. According to it, we develop a sense of self distinct from our environment after the age of 2. So, the concepts of our emotions, thoughts, body, and feelings are created with increasing age. Thus, according to researchers as early memories are not personally meaningful, we cannot form context-rich memories or recall them. This may explain the 50% accuracy in recalling events before the age of 2.
How to recall childhood memories
Researchers use three recall methods to help people access childhood memories. These are:
- Cued Recall: A person recalls early memories associated with a particular word presented to him/her.
- Free-recall: A person freely recalls early memories in any order.
- Exhaustive recall: A person recalls all memories associated with a particular age.
However, the question is that even if you do recall some early childhood memories, Can you trust them? The answer to this question is debatable. Some of our memories may be of traumatic nature. So our minds may be protecting us by repressing and making us forget them. In either case, early memories may fade away due to a lack of retrieval or improper encoding. In either case, we may form a few false memories to make up for it i.e. people may create memories by imagining or guessing what happened irrespective of any real evidence. They may be convinced something happened while being unaware of the fantasizing power of their mind.
So even if you can recall your earliest childhood memories, you might want to confirm their authenticity by asking your parents or siblings!