Brain scans of infants reveal the moment we start making memories

That is not an accurate summary. The article clearly discusses how they limited squirming enough to gather actual data.

Haha, fair... there's definitely a bit of "science marches forward... sort of!" energy here

total clickbait, indeed, author makes no substantial claims of any sort.

I don't know what the state-of-the-art is, but there was some work done that suggested that memories are formed encoded in the language you know at the time of formation.

I dug up some of this a while back[1].

My dad, who taught our language to immigrants, mentioned that it was known in that field that immigrants who lost their native language would also lose a lot of the knowledge they had from their home country, like stuff taught at schools.

Thus the memories might be there, one just can't make sense of them anymore and so they become forgotten.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37204047

That’s been my observation too. My completely amateur theory is that a young child’s perception of the world - their ability to contextualise what they’re looking at - changes so much that even if those old memories are still hanging around, they don’t really make sense any more. It’s more like a sliding window than a hard cutoff.

I experienced this with my older child. Ever since he could begin to talk he seemed to have exceptional memory, seemingly recalling things from even before he had words to describe them. But somewhere between 3 and 4 it's like there's been some culling of memories where a lot of things he would have known if you asked him on this third birthday he's seemingly forgotten by his 4th.

Not enough to be concerned of any cognitive things, and he still otherwise seems to have an excellent memory.

I might be misremembering, but talking with a friend years ago he was talking about a "New Scientist" article that described how the brain is flushed/cleaned of most memories at age 4 and again at age 7. Or something like that.

I was also surprised with my kids at 4-5 remembering when they were 3 or so, but now those memories seem to be completely, or near completely gone (at age 10). Perhaps they are just remembering the remembrance.

It's like there's a window where early memories seem pretty solid, and then suddenly parts of that window just vanish

yeah i think enough rewiring and adaptation happens in the brain that the older memories are still around but are no longer stored in the way the brain needs them to be stored in to be accessible at an older age, or something like that. they become inaccessible as the brain matures its ability to remember effectively.

anyone with kids knows that children remember all kinds of things, very, very early. habits, games, routines, schedules, things like that. these things are almost never able to be recalled later in life but they become part of your psyche somehow. for example you will often feel comforted when they are repeated later and you feel a bit "off" when they are done differently, even as an adult. I think a lot of parenting instinct is actually rooted in this kind of memory. The inclination to raise your children as you yourself were raised.

A lot of early memories are induced, e.g. parents told you a story, and your brain "fills it up", so you think it's your own memory, but it's actually more of imagination. Or you imagined where the crib were, and parents confirmed, so you think you remembered.

Watching crime witness testimonies reveals how much we actually imagine, not remember.

>>I have confirmed with my parents the placement and orientation of my crib

Is there any way you have seen those things in some of the old family pictures? Because I know I am definitely guilty of that, I can swear I remember bits from my family's trip to Pompeii when I Was 2 years old, not much but little bits here and there, and only when I was older I noticed that what I remember is suspiciously similar to what my mum has in the family album from that trip(which I most likely would have seen as a child too).

In fact I worry about it with my own son now, I don't think he'll be able to tell the difference between his own memories and things he has seen in 1000s of pictures and videos I have been taking since he was born.

I'm the opposite. I started making memories very late - I have only the vaguest memories of primary school. I think I formed long-term memories at around 10 years old.

Other commenters are trying to gaslight you into believing this isn't possible, but I also have a memory from before I could walk.

I was lying on the floor, contemplating a toy that had been hung above my head, when someone who was not one of my parents came to pick me up.

Years later, I told my mother about this. She then searched through the family film archive, and found the moment in question. The person who picked me up was my uncle.

This was not a film we had watched before, it came about because I was discussing with my mother our earliest memories.

People might call BS on this, but I can recall the full layout of the home I lived in until I was 2 (to the shock of my family when I laid it all out). I have a memory from my first birthday as well. There are many people who have legitimate memories from very early on.

I've had people full on state as fact children can't recall anything before age [4-7]. 10? Wow haha.

My earliest memory is at around 18mo. When I was nearly a father myself, I told my mom of my early memory and she remembered it too and told me how old I was.

My kids, especially the first, would routinely recall things when she was 3 that happened when she was 2 or slightly younger. I can recall thinking, "I barely remember that, how the heck do you remember that!?" However, she had forgotten most of those early early memories a few years later.

But it becomes all so elusive when you grow older. I remember remembering moments before I could speak or walk, but I think those memories were clearer when I was a little kid (I'm 40 now). Too bad I didn't write them down back then. Things like trying to utter a word but parents giving up before I could produce the sound, or using a baby walker (those were a thing in the late 80s). I think I have a picture in my mind of a scene where my little brother was just born and I was 1 year old, but my mother says it couldn't have happened like that, so it might be my memory or hers that's playing tricks. But for some memories it's also hard for me to determine whether they are confabulations from stories I've heard and pictures I've seen, or happened later than I think, eg. at age 5-6 instead of 2-3.

My daughter remembered the names of all her daycare friends not long after turning one. They always took their shoes off, and she would tell the adults whose shoe it was immediately. At 2 she would say things like “I fell I got booboo” referring to having fallen at Daycare during playtime. Its really funny because she can recollect some things but others like what you just told her are completely alien. I wonder if it has to do moreso with physical events being easier for her to describe vs trying to summarize my grown up words so she can relay them back. As she gets older repeating more complex sentences and fully understanding them will be easier for her to store.

I wonder if this is why smell helps to reactivate memories, your ability to recollect smells is probably the more consistent way to retain memories.

My parents moved when I was 3 and an half. I remember distinctly our previous house. I described (much later) to my parents the layout and the colors of different rooms and they were shocked that I could remember.

My 3.5 years old son, still remembers things that happened when he was 2 (visit to disney land for example). But I think it's maybe a bit different nowadays because we have a lot more photos that might help him form and recall his memories compared to when I was a child in the 80s.

There's research that has shown that stress in the early years of life delays development of the hippocampus - and without sufficiently developed hippocampus you can't have these kinds of memories.

So the generalization ("all kids") is wrong, but some people, being exposed to toxins or stress sources (fetal alcohol syndrome, cigarettes, lead, premature birth, asthma, ...), can really only develop memories later. 10 years is a bit much, though...

How vivid are we talking, on a scale of 1 to Young Sheldon? https://youtu.be/od6Zq5T57R0?&t=26

Likewise. I have a handful of memories from between 18 and 24 months.

I know they're from that period, as they relate to a place where my parents lived at that time.

Yeah I don't have a lot of early childhood memories that probably aren't just re-creation of things I see in old photos, but one memory stands out - my late uncle leaning over stroller I was in, me getting properly scared of his mustache and starting crying.

I mean stroller where infants lie flat down and have this canopy above head, sorry don't know exact english term. Can't be more than 1 year in any normal case, I was a tall child.

But then again who knows, maybe its a memory of a dream experienced later. Our mind is a weird place, and subconsciousness is making various cleaning activities and modifications to make us feel better about ourselves (something I try to fight consciously to remember things as they truly were with all the warts and all, but it ain't easy).