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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by DominicHillsun@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

Unsure if babies can form memories ages 1-2, my oldest memory is from around age 3. They do learn words when they are around 1 year old, so there must be some capacity for memory? What is going on there?

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[-] what_is_a_name@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This used to be my field before I quit academia. There are two answers both indicating towards - yes, babies remember:

  1. every time we (scientists) devise a new way to ask even younger kinds (infants) whether they understand one thing or another, or whether they remember, we find out that they do. The problem is how to communicate with a nonverbal infant, let alone a newborn.

  2. A lot of brain development happening in the first 6 years or so is killing a lot of neural connections and strengthening others.

The leading theory (10 years ago, when I left the field, science can move fast) proposed that this may be why adults rarely remember things before age 3 - but young children have LOADS memories of before age 3 with accounts (anecdotes) of young children having memories of the prenatal phase (“when I was in mama’s belly …”) - I call these anecdotes because I know of of many parents with these anecdotes, but no study that actually looked into validity of these stories.

The theory then simply argues that as the brain matures and kids learn all the new things they need to learn, they retire these very early memories - they simply forget. But they did have them.

[-] HamSwagwich@showeq.com 6 points 1 year ago

It's my understanding that the current research indicates children switch from symbolic memory (memories encoded as symbols and images) to verbal memory, where primary memories are encoded as words and thoughts.

When this switch happens, the symbolic memory becomes essentially inaccessible. Thus why people's memories usually "start" around the time they learn language.

[-] Sunstream@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wait, so does symbolic memory transition to being primarily language? I assume we retain symbolic memory in some capacity?

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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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