The Wake

Illustration by Dustin Nelson

Each of us has incriminating photos from when we were toddlers. However, thanks to a psychological condition called “infantile amnesia,” we have the comfort of not remembering what embarrassing things we said or did. This condition, which isn’t true amnesia, is the explanation scientists give for not retaining childhood memories. It also explains why humans can’t retain memories from before they were born.

Infantile amnesia differs from regular amnesia, in which a person cannot remember anything that happened to them during a certain period of time. Rather, infantile amnesia is the term used for the lack of permanent childhood memories.

Although infantile amnesia hasn’t been explained by modern science, several psychological theories have emerged during the past 100 years. In 1916, famous psychologist Sigmund Freud offered the theory that babies can’t form personalities until the age of three or four, and therefore can’t make memories. He believed babies repress memories, especially sexual memories, because they are frightening.

This theory has been challenged in recent years, however. Research has shown that newborn babies can pick out their parents’ voices within hours after birth. It has also been shown that babies respond to books that were read to them while they were in the womb more positively than they do with books that are introduced to them after birth. This was recognized after Anthony DeCasper’s study at the University of North Carolina showed babies sucked quicker at a nipple while hearing stories that were read to them in utero. It is estimated that babies can recognize language after around 27 weeks in gestation, according to David B. Chamberlain, a California psychologist.

A more popular theory suggests that as humans grow older, their ability to retain memories grows as well. In a 1962 study, rats were trained to avoid a certain area of a maze. Rats of different ages, from a couple of weeks to several years old, were all conditioned to avoid this section. The rats were tested again after set intervals of time; younger rats forgot their training much more quickly than older rats.

The exact cause of the lack of infant memory is difficult for scientists to figure out. Most known research has been anecdotal, where participants are simply asked what their earliest memories are. Studies show the average person has their earliest memory at age three. Participants are also asked to remember certain events that they had heard about when they were children, in order to challenge their memory. The danger in this kind of research is the ability for humans to create false memories, therefore skewing any results.

At best, scientists know that the older a person gets, the more memories they create and the less they can remember about their childhood. Scientists figure these early memories are either stored deep inside our minds or erased completely as though there isn’t enough room in our brains. Regardless, more research needs to be done on brain development before it is proven that humans only have a set amount of space for memory.

So remember what you can for now. Thirty or 40 years from now, you might not remember where you were reading this article!