We took our now 3,5 years old son for a trip to USA last fall … so he was 2,5 years old that time. We live in Europe. Next week i am traveling there again so i spoke with him about me traveling to USA and he started asking me questions about places we were last year. Also he was telling me many specific memories from that trip last year and was asking me about specific people we have met. That is not surprising, it was last year. But how is it possible, that he will not remember anything from it 15 years from now if he remember it year after? I mean, he will not remember he was in USA at all.
I would understand that kids and toddlers keep forgetting stuff and thats why they will never remember them as an adults. But if they remember things from year or more ago, why will they forgett them as an adults?
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If you drop a red marble into an empty swimming pool with no water in it, you can go down into the pool and find that marble. That’s how it is when you’re very young – a large brain that doesn’t have many memories yet.
Each moment and experience in a young mind creates a new memory – a new marble – unique and related to other memories and impressions. Those are more marbles to add to the pool, of different shades and tones and colours and textures and sizes, distributed along the bottom of the pool; some touching others, some resting by themselves off to the side, soon to be connected by the many more marbles constantly coming in to fill up the pool.
After many years, the pool is starting to fill with a great many marbles, but it becomes more difficult to find that first red marble that’s now deep in the pile. But not impossible. Memories are linked to other memories, like how a marble is touching those around it. Just because you can’t find that original red marble doesn’t mean it’s lost, it just means you’re following a path of other marbles/memories that don’t lead to it.
There are different ways to help remember something, and they usually involve trying to remember things related to it – associations. Remembering something related to it can help you get in the right path to the original memory.
Memories aren’t just pictures in your head either. They can be sounds, smells, textures.
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