Memory Development in Babies
What would our lives be like if we could never remember an event, a favored memento, a loved one? It’s difficult to imagine. Many of our memories are incredibly detailed and tied to a multitude of experiences, which we remember via thoughts and words.
We also hold vivid memories that are linked to experiences involving a scent or taste. In the springtime, a common flowering bush exudes a dreamy scent: when I happen upon one, memories emerge of the bush-strewn path I took to the local beach when I was a schoolgirl.
Very young babies seem to have memories of scents such as the scent of a mother’s body. They also remember events that repeatedly occur in tandem: the sight of a bottle and being fed, a father’s touch and being hugged. And like us, young babies rely on recognition (or cued) memory such as the sight of a face seen before to retrieve information. However, many of the baby’s early memories fade over time because they are not tied to ideas and words that the baby uses consciously.
For a good many years, we thought that young babies relied primarily on recognition memory for retrieval, and then months later their recall memory system, which did not rely on cues, emerged. Nowadays we have a more comprehensive understanding of infant memory, thanks to clever researchers, innovative technology used to measure infant behaviors, recent brain research and a greater understanding of the parts of the brain that are involved in memory.
To start, there’s a new terminology. The newer views of memory include two major subdivisions; one is labeled implicit and the other is called explicit. Implicit memory does not need conscious awareness. An example is memory that is embedded in a series of actions such as using dining utensils or riding a bicycle—once the skills have been well learned. Some implicit memories can be brought to consciousness given a particular circumstance: as a long¬time bicycle rider, I’ve recently become more conscious of braking for a stop because of a change from toe clips to clip-on pedals.
In contrast to implicit memory, explicit, or declarative, memory operates with consciousness and depends on the use of words or ideas to retrieve names, places, and episodes from our recent or longtime past. Examples include responses to: “What did you do yesterday, after work?”; “Tell me the most memorable experience from your childhood.”
Current views also suggest that implicit- and explicit-memory systems are interrelated: both have beginnings early in life and expand over time into more complex systems. However, the development of explicit memory takes considerably longer to mature than implicit memory. One other difference between implicit and explicit memory pertains to its neural bases.
In general, subcortical and cerebellar pathways are associated with implicit memory, whereas cortical areas such as the temporal lobes and prefrontal cortex are associated with explicit memory. Both implicit – and explicit-memory systems encompass different memory processes, and as described above the age in which we start developing our memory varies between each one.
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