Why Can't We Remember Being a Baby? (They May Be Locked, Not Gone)

You learned to walk, to talk and to recognise the people who loved you, and you remember none of it. Why? In this video we go through Freud's century-old puzzle, a 2018 study of 6,641 people's "first memories", babies lying awake inside an MRI scanner at Yale, running mice in Toronto, a magic shrinking machine in New Zealand, and the surprisingly ordinary thing that decides how far back your memory reaches. 0:00 Intro: the years you lost 1:46 Infantile amnesia & Freud's idea 3:10 The 2018 study: fake first memories 4:33 Can babies even make memories? 6:04 Yale 2025: babies in a brain scanner 8:08 Busy mice & new neurons 11:25 Light switches a lost memory back on 13:05 Language, words & the sense of self 16:18 Why talking about the past matters 18:37 The full answer Sources: Akhtar, Justice, Morrison & Conway (2018), Psychological Science: fictional first memories Yates, Turk-Browne et al. (2025), Science: hippocampal encoding in infants Akers, Frankland et al. (2014), Science: neurogenesis and infantile amnesia Guskjolen et al. (2018), Current Biology: recovery of "lost" infant memories Simcock & Hayne (2002), Psychological Science: the magic shrinking machine Howe & Courage (1993/1997): the cognitive self and autobiographical memory Bauer & Larkina (2014), Memory: childhood amnesia in the making MacDonald, Uesiliana & Hayne (2000): cross-cultural earliest memories If you've ever typed a question into a search bar and got a one-line reply that didn't really explain anything, this channel is for you. Subscribe for the next long answer. #memory #psychology #brain