childhood amnesia

Childhood amnesia refers to the common phenomenon where adults have limited or no memories of their early years, typically before age 3 or 4. This occurs because young children's brains are still developing, especially the hippocampus, which is crucial for forming long-term memories. Additionally, early memories may not be retained due to differences in language development and the way memory encoding works in infancy. As a result, most adults cannot recall personal experiences from their very earliest years, even though they may have some implicit or subconscious memories.