[ad_1]
Many of us have no memories from the first years of life.
In fact, we tend to remember very little of our lives before the age of seven.
And it is often unclear whether they are true or just memories based on pictures or stories told to us by others.
This phenomenon is known by psychologists as “childhood amnesia”, but they still do not understand how it works.
AgroWeb.org based on various data, acquaints you below with some interesting studies, which try to give an explanation to this question.
What do memory studies show in infants and children?
At first glance, it seems that the reason why we do not have memories from the period when we are babies, is because memory is not fully developed.
But babies as young as six months old can form short-term memories that last for minutes and long-term memories that last weeks or months.
In one study, six-month-olds who learned how to press a lever to steer a toy train recalled how to perform the action even three weeks after the last time they played with it.
On the other hand, children in preschool are able to remember the events that happened a few years ago.
Of course, the ability to remember at these ages is not similar to that of adults because they continue to mature into adolescence.
In fact, the developmental process has been presented as an explanation for childhood amnesia, and is one of the most plausible theories to date.
These basic processes involve several regions of the brain and involve the formation, storage, and subsequent process of remembering.
The hippocampus, which is thought to be responsible for the formation of memories, continues to develop until the age of seven.
Children and adolescents have earlier memories than adults. This suggests that the problem may be related to the formation of memories rather than their storage.
Another important factor is language. From the age of one to six, children learn to speak.
It is true that to some extent, a child’s ability to tell an event in the past predicts how well they will remember it months or years later.
A group of researchers conducted this study by interviewing young children, who were brought to the hospital for common injuries that occur in childhood.
Children over 26 months, who could express themselves in words about the event they experienced, remembered it for many more years.
While those under 26 months, who could not speak, could not remember it completely or at all.
This suggests that memories may be lost if not translated into the language.
Social and cultural effects
However, most research on the role of language focuses on a particular form of expression. Also called the narrative form and in its social function.
When parents in the presence of young children recall past events, they teach them narrative ability.
What kind of events are important to remember and how to structure the talk about them in a way that others can understand.
Unlike the simple narration of information for factual purposes, memory revolves around the social function of sharing experiences with others.
In this way, family stories maintain the accessibility of memory over time, and also develop the way of telling the story, including the chronology of events, the theme and the scale of emotions. .
Although there are still things we do not understand about childhood amnesia, researchers are making progress in this area.
They are conducting more studies where individuals are pursued since childhood.
Also, as neuroscience advances, there will undoubtedly be more studies linking brain development to memory development.
However it is important to know that even if you can not clearly remember special events from your youth, their accumulation leaves traces that affect our behavior.
So even though we may not remember the first years of life, they play a powerful role in our formation as human beings./ AgroWeb
top channel
[ad_2]
Source link
