eli5: how is it that human doesnt remember anything from first several years of their life?

962 views

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?

In: 2567

27 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you have a book that has just one page of text, you will likely remember quite well what happened in what part of that page. As you age, you gain massive amount of new experiences of all kinds. Suddenly you are sitting with a trilogy, with each book having thousand pages, and you are trying to remember what exactly happened on page 41 of the first one.

You are viewing 1 out of 27 answers, click here to view all answers.