In a 1951 paper, psychologist Neal Miller, PhD, wrote that although people cannot remember their very early childhood, the events that happen then still influence them years later.

"The young child does not notice or label the experiences which it is having at this time," Miller wrote. "Nevertheless, the behavioral record survives."

In the annual Neal Miller lecture at APA's 2005 Annual Convention, University of Arizona psychology professor Lynn Nadel, PhD, described how his and others' research has begun to back up Miller's observation.

"Fifty years ago we didn't have the evidence," Nadel said, "but now we're in a position to talk about this in an empirical way."

Children and memory

That evidence begins, Nadel said, with the fact that there are really two kinds of memory: memory for episodes, events and facts, and memory for skills and habits. The first kind of memory, Nadel and others have found, mainly involves the hippocampus. In a 2001 study, for example, Nadel and his colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the brains of seven older adults as they recalled specific memories from their recent past (such as giving a talk at a conference) and from their long-ago past (such as learning to drive). Recalling all of these episodic memories activated the participants' hippocampi.

However, implicit memory--the skills and habits we acquire without even trying--involves many other brain structures. Research points to the cerebellum, basal ganglia and amygdala, which is important for acquiring emotional memories, Nadel said.

He and others have found evidence that the amygdala system is present at birth, but the hippocampus matures later. So the events of our early childhood might leave an emotional memory imprint and influence our habits and other implicit learning without leaving any trace of an episodic memory via the still-immature hippocampus.

"This helps us understand why we can't remember when and how we learned things in infancy, but these things exert a strong influence on our subsequent behavior," Nadel said.

The stress connection

The hippocampus also plays another critical role: It helps regulate the body's stress response.

"The hippocampus is loaded with stress hormone receptors," said Nadel. He and others have found that, because of this, stress hormones can affect the hippocampus's other functions, including episodic memory.

In a 2002 study, for example, Nadel and his colleagues found that stress increased false-memory rates. They asked participants to give a 10-minute speech to a panel of judges. Then, those stressed participants and some unstressed control participants listened to a long word list. Later, the stressed participants were more likely to say that they remembered hearing words that were not really on the list.

However, Nadel has found that stress is less likely to affect the types of memories that involve the amygdala rather than the hippocampus--such as emotional memories. In a study currently in press, participants who were either stressed or unstressed viewed a series of slides that told a story--either an emotional story or a neutral one. When the researchers asked the participants to recall the story one week later, they found that stressing the participant before the emotional story actually increased memory, but stressing the participant before the neutral story decreased memory.

Overall, Nadel said, research shows that "Aversive events that happen early in life can leave powerful traces behind, but with no record of where or when these experiences occurred."

This could, he said, help explain the root of such phenomena as strong phobias that have no known cause, or even post-traumatic stress disorder.

"And later in life," he continued, "stress can accomplish the same thing."
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Interesting conclusion. I like how he says that it could explain strong phobias with no memory... if you don't know... this is just giving it a label of why you don't know, not helping you remember.

That is interesting. And makes sense. To extend the idea -- my earliest memories that I do have are of very negative stressful times. Pleasant memories are from later on.

Wow.....that explains a lot for me.....good find!

Believe it or not, all of my life I have had the memory of me standing in a crib in a long room with an opened door at the end. The door goes to the outside and there are rays of sunlight entering the room. I remember seeing particles of dust moving through the sunlight and being fascinated by it.

This is not dream imagry. It is something I experienced and remember.

Hi Kratos:

This is a great article and makes perfect sense. Like Purplos posted, my earliest memories are also of very stressful times. Thanks for sharing the link.

Nelly from the Block

Maybe because babies brains are not fully developed

Maybe because babies brains are not fully developed

The simplest answer is usually the right one. As Lacan sort of indicated in the post above, simple as one, two ,three!

That paper was pretty interesting. So where does this leave past life regressions? Are people really digging up past lives or are they creating past lives? and if we could remember a past life through hypnosis could we remember early childhood memories through those same means?

I have a friend who is a twin who remembers being in her crib. I assume she was an older infant maybe more to the age of almost 2 yrs. But as a 3 yr old I remember praying for the safe return of my Daddy who was out all night long.

My earliest memories are from when i was 18 months old, i was telling my mum about the things i thought i remembered, and she said i remembered everything very accurately, although i have been told i have a good memory for most things

I honestly have very, very few memories of growing up. Most anything I remember before say the age of 5 was usually something bad.

It's something I've been discussing with my counselor. Who knows, maybe it was my coping mechanism. Not that I want to remember per say, but it might explain things. Maybe it links back to my early childhood?

I'm going to have to look up more on this. Thanks for the start, Kratos!

40nrockinon

Once at home we where reminiscing about the funny things that we did as kids, and my dad was shocked when I was able to describe the contents of my parents old bedroom back in our old house when I had only ever spent the 1st couple of years of my life there.
He stopped me in the middle of a sentence and said – “ok smarty pants, since you claim to have a good memory, please describe to us what our old bedroom used to look like” So I did just that, I recalled the huge fire place on the left hand side of the room, the bedroom units, one that a few of my dads books where sitting on, I could even tell him what color the room was and what side of the room their bed was on, after that he looked shocked.

My mum told me that the reason as to why I remember their old room so many years ago (at the age of 2) is probably because I used to go in there most nights when I had nightmares, as it was a place of comfort for me.

There is only one thing that has stuck in my mind from I was 4 yrs old was something a lil disturbing that I had witnessed when I was out playing, other things that stick in my mind from I was a child are the really fun times, but for the love of me I cant recall those exact dates and times but I still remember the events that took place

The simple fact is that babies use pure perception to interact with their environment & have not the learned habits to assimilate the world in the mundane ways we are "familiar" with. The article is not even worth reading imho

Well I thought it was worth reading

Interesting subject Kratos! I have always been curious as to ones earliest memories and how they relate to their perceptions of life. My own earliest memory was being in a pram with my new born brother, there are thirteen months between him and myself so that would make me a little over a year old. I remember the hood of the pram being partially open and seeing sun rays and shadows of the trees I remember feeling agitated by the movement of the trees and some concern for my brother.
I would like to hear others earliest memories of being alive. Does anyone here know what is the norm for earliest recorded personal memory?
Irish

Interesting article! I don't have any memories from early childhood . . they were probably all bad and I blocked them. Although I usually don't like to 'remember' the past!