奇速英语

消失的童年记忆：它们去哪了？

Think back to the first thing you remember. Chances are, you were at least a couple of years old when those events happened. Children under three are very aware of the world around them and they do seem to remember things from the recent past. Yet, one day, those early memories are gone.

Between us and our earliest experiences lies a mysterious barrier. Interestingly, this is not just true for humans. Experiments show that mice also forget their early learning. Young mice that learn to fear a place where they received a shock do not recognize it after they grow up. Scientists who study this phenomenon, known as childhood amnesia (遗忘), have made surprising discoveries about how this forgetting works.

So, are the memories gone, or are they just out of reach? Some research suggests that in mice, those memories still exist. In one study, researchers marked the brain cells that were active when young mice learned to fear a certain space. Months later, when the grown mice had forgotten this fear, the scientists reactivated those same cells. Suddenly, the mice reacted as if they remembered the fear. This finding suggests that, at least in some forms, early memories are not effaced — they may simply become inaccessible.

What about humans? Scientists at Yale University have managed to scan the brains of young children. They found that kids as young as one year old do form memories in a way similar to adults. This hints that humans, too, may create early memories that later cannot be reached. One researcher notes that while talking about past events or showing photos can help a child remember, the pure memory that is not discussed will soon fade away.

Why do we forget our early years? It remains a mystery. But perhaps the value of early memories is not in the specific details we lose, but in how they help us build a general understanding of the world. Such knowledge stays with us and helps us make decisions, even if we cannot recall the individual moments themselves.