School of Psychology, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Learn Mem. 2014 Feb 14;21(3):135-9. doi: 10.1101/lm.031096.113.
Unlike adult memories that can be remembered for many years, memories that are formed early in life are more fragile and susceptible to being forgotten (a phenomenon known as "infantile" or "childhood" amnesia). Nonetheless, decades of research in both humans and nonhuman animals demonstrate the importance of early life experiences on later physical, mental, and emotional functioning. This raises the question of how early memories can be so influential if they cannot be recalled. This review presents one potential solution to this paradox by considering what happens to an early memory after it has been forgotten. Specifically, we describe evidence showing that these forgotten early-acquired memories have not permanently decayed from storage. Instead, there appears to be a memory "trace" that persists in the face of forgetting which continues to affect a variety of behavioral responses later in life. Excitingly, the discovery of this physical trace will allow us to explore previously untestable issues in new ways, from whether forgetting is due to a failure in retrieval or storage to how memories can be recovered after extended periods of time. A greater understanding of the characteristics of this memory trace will provide novel insights into how some memories are left behind in childhood while others are carried with us, at least in some form, for a lifetime.
与可以多年记住的成人记忆不同，早期形成的记忆更为脆弱，容易被遗忘（这种现象被称为“婴儿期”或“儿童期”遗忘）。尽管如此，人类和非人类动物的数十年研究表明，早期生活经历对后期的身体、心理和情绪功能具有重要影响。这就提出了一个问题：如果早期记忆无法被回忆起来，它们怎么会有如此大的影响力呢？本文通过考虑遗忘后早期记忆会发生什么，提出了一个可能的解决方案来解决这一悖论。具体来说，我们描述了一些证据，这些证据表明，这些被遗忘的早期习得的记忆并没有从存储中永久衰退。相反，似乎存在一种记忆“痕迹”，即使在遗忘的情况下也能持续存在，并继续影响以后生活中的各种行为反应。令人兴奋的是，这种物理痕迹的发现将使我们能够以新的方式探索以前无法测试的问题，从遗忘是由于检索还是存储失败引起的，到在长时间后如何恢复记忆。对这种记忆痕迹特征的更深入了解，将为一些记忆在儿童时期被遗忘，而另一些记忆以某种形式伴随我们一生的原因提供新的见解。
