Memory question?!
Question: What causes some people to remember huge amounts of what happened in their childhood while others are completely blank?
I've heard the theory that childhood trauma causes people to block memories and that's why they have years missing from their memory. However, I know of people who have had terrible trauma as a child and unfortunately remember details they would rather forget (along with happy memories and mundane memories). I also know of people who haven't had any major traumas and can't remember entire years. I was just talking to a relative who can't remember the 6th grade and I know it was a boring year but it couldn't have been THAT boring.
Is it related to intelligence? People who are studious spend a lot of time developing their memory and maybe it spills over to all memories and not just academic facts? In the folks I'm talking about, it's the more studious ones who retain the memories but this is not a statistically significant sample.
Answers: What causes some people to remember huge amounts of what happened in their childhood while others are completely blank?
I've heard the theory that childhood trauma causes people to block memories and that's why they have years missing from their memory. However, I know of people who have had terrible trauma as a child and unfortunately remember details they would rather forget (along with happy memories and mundane memories). I also know of people who haven't had any major traumas and can't remember entire years. I was just talking to a relative who can't remember the 6th grade and I know it was a boring year but it couldn't have been THAT boring.
Is it related to intelligence? People who are studious spend a lot of time developing their memory and maybe it spills over to all memories and not just academic facts? In the folks I'm talking about, it's the more studious ones who retain the memories but this is not a statistically significant sample.
People remember the past basically because they rehash it constantly in their mind throughout their lives. This means that they rehearse the details. Other people who cannot remember their memories do not rehearse it. The fact that people do not appear to remember their past does not mean that they have no memory of their past in their brain. Rather, rehearsing memories keeps a person's ability to access a memory open and available to them. People who do not remember lose accessibility to their memories. Sometimes they can remember if provided certain cues or prompts that help them to re-establish accessibility.
Recent research has proposed that the more we access memories, the more open to corruption we make the memories because accessing them allows them to commingle with present thoughts and we begin to add things or subtract things from them.
This has been a short course on memories. There is more to it, but these were the basics.
I dont know. I dont think It is to related to intelligence in any way, more to traumatic experiences. Good question, though.
Great memories are gifts from God (talented musicians, talented historians, etc.).
Regarding memory formation and retrieval, there are neurological challenges which can impact memory access such as:
The ADHDs, the many epilepsies (petit mal, absence, etc.), the CAPDs, the dyspraxias, the apraxias, side-effects subtle brain injuries/concussions, etc., other.