Your parents might ask you if you recall a specific incident from your childhood, and you may find yourself shaking your head. Today, your own children may experience the same. You’ve sung to them, played games, and even made a fool of yourself—all these moments seemingly forgotten. However, it’s not that straightforward. Even if children can’t actively recall these memories, they are still stored in their minds and influence them more than previously thought.
Until now, it was widely believed that earliest childhood memories began forming around the age of three. This has been debunked! A recent study from Columbia University in New York, published in the journal Science, reveals that children can remember much earlier than previously assumed, albeit unconsciously. Researchers found that even in the brains of one-year-old children, memory processes are already at work.
How Did the Researchers Discover This?
Advanced imaging techniques like fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) allow scientists to investigate brain activity and analyze how memories are formed and stored, even in infants and toddlers.
A focal point of research is the hippocampus, a brain region critical for episodic memory—essentially, memories of personal experiences. Researchers have been examining how the maturation of the hippocampus influences the ability to store and recall memories.
In this latest study, 24 toddlers aged four to 25 months were examined using fMRI to identify which brain regions activate at different times.
The Research Process
- The children were shown a series of images one after another.
- After a while, two images were presented simultaneously: one that they had seen before and a new, unfamiliar image.
- The researchers observed which images the children looked at longer.
- If children gazed longer at the familiar image than the new one, it was interpreted as a sign that they remembered the previously seen image—clear evidence of memory processes!
This allows researchers to conclude that the brain’s ability to store experiences is present much earlier than once thought, starting around the age of one! The reason we don’t recall early childhood memories as older children, adolescents, or adults isn’t that they were never stored. Instead, later memory processes, such as retrieval, appear to be disrupted.
These new findings reinforce the importance of shielding even very young children from traumatic experiences, as such events may adversely affect them unconsciously throughout their lives.
