When we are born, our brain is not yet fully developed, and we are not able to retain long-term memories. In addition, our attention is limited, and we cannot remember everything that happens around us. Well, in adulthood, you can remember everything and have fun, for this, you can visit the 22Bet login site.
But this does not mean that our childhood passes for us without a trace. We are still learning new skills, and forming our characters and relationships with people around us. It is these things that stay with us for life and shape our personality. So even if we don’t remember our early childhood, it still has an impact on us.
Memories
Previously, it was believed that we begin to form memories from birth, if not earlier. However, recent studies have shown that childhood memories are not permanently stored in the brain and therefore we cannot use them in adulthood. We begin to accumulate memories around the age of 4 to 7 years, and only some events from this period can easily be remembered.
However, until the age of 4, we can’t remember absolutely anything. In one study, children aged 4 to 7 years were told about events that happened to them two years ago, but none of the children could remember them. Most of the kids said, “It wasn’t me, it was someone else.”
Freud’s Opinion
Sigmund Freud was a renowned neurologist and pioneering psychologist who believed that we cannot remember our early childhood because we suppress these memories. However, today this theory raises serious doubts, and new hypotheses have emerged that try to explain the causes of childhood amnesia. One of these hypotheses suggests that the child’s brain is not yet fully formed, and therefore it is not able to form episodic memories and memory of real events.
Biology of Memories
Other parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe, which are involved in the formation of memories, developed by the first year of life. However, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for the formation of episodic memory, matures only by the age of 20.
Up to this point, children can only remember the skills, objects, and faces of the people they were taught. They cannot associate phenomena with their emotions, so events are not remembered. Memories appear in children only with time when their brain becomes more developed and able to form episodic memories.
There is a hypothesis that children cannot remember events and retain memories due to insufficient knowledge of the language. Young children cannot connect words with the events taking place because they lack knowledge and experience. Adults constantly use language to connect words and memories, which helps to improve the brain functions responsible for storing memories. A child can begin to remember events from the age of 4, when his vocabulary reaches about 5,000 words, which is enough to describe many events and objects, despite their simplicity. These descriptions help children develop and move forward, even if it happens slowly. The creation of a connection between words and memories is due to knowledge of the language and communication with other people on topics related to certain phenomena. The more we talk about something, the more likely we are to remember it. Our brain stores certain images and pictures that we often recall. Repeating certain stories and events helps to keep them in memory.