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He doesn’t. He remembers his mom telling him about the incident and it has morphed into him thinking he remembers it. My kid swears he remembers this one incid

He doesn’t. He remembers his mom telling him about the incident and it has morphed into him thinking he remembers it. My kid swears he remembers this one incident that my wife and I joke about, but what he remembers is the video of it. You physically don’t have the brain cells for long term memories until around age 5 which is why most childhood memories start around there.

philipswood 5y ago
Interested in the source for the "You physically don't have the brain cells for long term memories until around age 5" to go look at. I have some recall of a few, vivid, subjective, first person, "umwelt"-style memories of events that I can date to before I was five. These feel very different to my normal "episodic" memories. Having spoken to my dad about the same subject before, he has some that he can place to about age 2 or 3. I'm not arguing your point; granted, memory is reconstructive imaging from some engram and not a replay of some recording and I'm super convinced that our brains and mind go through several developmental stages that function quite differently. I also find it super interesting that people with hyperthymesia usually have a perfect recall start date a bit after age 10.
karlshea 5y ago
Well I have very specific memories from ages 3-5 and they couldn’t have been from someone telling me about it, so that can’t be right.
- ScottBurson 5y ago
  They may not be from someone telling you about it, but what you're remembering is mostly the previous occasions of recalling it. The original impression would be gone if it hadn't been occasionally reinforced by reconstructing it.
  - karlshea 5y ago
    But that’s how all long term memory works, I don’t see what age 5 has to do with anything.
moksly 5y ago
> You physically don’t have the brain cells for long term memories until around age 5 which is why most childhood memories start around there. If your research shows that I would strongly urge you to publish it, because that’s a groundbreaking find. In reality, the brain reaches its “full” size of 90% of your body mass around the age of 3. 75% at the age of 2 and 50% at the age of 1 and 25% at birth. Every source we have in Denmark suggests that the human brain starts forming memories around 5 months into the pregnancy. It is access to these memories that aren’t always present, and that access seems to depend on repetition in ages 0-2 and language development beyond that. However, if the brain was physically unable to form memories before the age of 5, well… small children wouldn’t be able to talk, walk or even breathe.

philipswood 5y ago

Interested in the source for the "You physically don't have the brain cells for long term memories until around age 5" to go look at. I have some recall of a few, vivid, subjective, first person, "umwelt"-style memories of events that I can date to before I was five. These feel very different to my normal "episodic" memories. Having spoken to my dad about the same subject before, he has some that he can place to about age 2 or 3. I'm not arguing your point; granted, memory is reconstructive imaging from some engram and not a replay of some recording and I'm super convinced that our brains and mind go through several developmental stages that function quite differently. I also find it super interesting that people with hyperthymesia usually have a perfect recall start date a bit after age 10.

karlshea 5y ago

Well I have very specific memories from ages 3-5 and they couldn’t have been from someone telling me about it, so that can’t be right.

ScottBurson 5y ago
They may not be from someone telling you about it, but what you're remembering is mostly the previous occasions of recalling it. The original impression would be gone if it hadn't been occasionally reinforced by reconstructing it.
- karlshea 5y ago
  But that’s how all long term memory works, I don’t see what age 5 has to do with anything.

moksly 5y ago

> You physically don’t have the brain cells for long term memories until around age 5 which is why most childhood memories start around there. If your research shows that I would strongly urge you to publish it, because that’s a groundbreaking find. In reality, the brain reaches its “full” size of 90% of your body mass around the age of 3. 75% at the age of 2 and 50% at the age of 1 and 25% at birth. Every source we have in Denmark suggests that the human brain starts forming memories around 5 months into the pregnancy. It is access to these memories that aren’t always present, and that access seems to depend on repetition in ages 0-2 and language development beyond that. However, if the brain was physically unable to form memories before the age of 5, well… small children wouldn’t be able to talk, walk or even breathe.