I formed earlier memories using more rudimentary, pre-verbal means, and that made those memories unreachable as the acquisition of language reshaped how my mind works, as it does for everyone. More than that, for the memory to remain accessible, my younger self had to remember those concepts in the same language-based way that my adult self remembers information. We need to understand the concepts that give meaning to an event: For the memory of my brother’s birth, I have to understand the meanings of concepts like “hospital,” “brother,” “cot,” and even Thomas the Tank Engine. Our ability to remember events that happened to us relies on more complicated mental infrastructure than other kinds of memory. “When people were accusing infants of having amnesia, what they were talking about is what we refer to as episodic memory,” Reznick explained. More sophisticated forms of memory develop in the child’s second year, as semantic memory allows children to retain understanding of concepts and general knowledge about the world. The ability to understand words and learn language relies on working memory, which kicks in at around six months old. Indeed, when I asked the developmental psychologist Steven Reznick about why childhood amnesia exists, he disputed the very use of that term: “I would say right now that is a rather archaic statement.” A professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Reznick explained that shortly after birth, infants can start forming impressions of faces and react when they see those faces again this is recognition memory. But whether or not something hangs around long-term depends on on several other factors.” Two of the most important factors, Peterson explained, are whether the memory “has emotion infused in it,” and whether the memory is coherent: Does the story our memory tells us actually hang together and make sense when we recall it later?īut then, this event- or story-based memory isn’t the only kind, although it’s the one people typically focus on when discussing “first” memories. “Children have a very good memory system. “People used to think that the reason that we didn’t have early memories was because children didn’t have a memory system or they were unable to remember things, but it turns out that’s not the case,” Peterson said. Her research has found that small children can recall events from when they were as young as 20 months old, but these memories typically fade by the time they’re between 4 and 7 years old. Carole Peterson, a professor of psychology at Memorial University Newfoundland, studies children’s memories. When I talk about my first memory, what I really mean is my first retained memory. Most people’s first memories date to when they were about 3.5 years old, and that was my age, almost to the day, when my brother was born. There could be a sliver of truth to that: Research into the formation and retention of our earliest memories suggests that people’s memories often begin with significant personal events, and the birth of a sibling is a textbook example. In sentimental moments, I’m tempted to say my brother’s birth is my first memory because it was the first thing in my life worth remembering. I can even remember the precise story: “ Percy Takes the Plunge,” which feels appropriate, given that I too was about to recklessly throw myself into the adventure of being a big brother. It was the final two minutes of a Thomas the Tank Engine episode. But mostly, I remember what was on the television. I can remember being taken to my mother’s hospital room, and going to gaze upon my only sibling in his bedside cot. I can remember my father driving my grandparents and me over to the hospital in Highland Park, Illinois, that night to see my newborn brother. My first memory is of the day my brother was born: November 14, 1991.
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