为什么我们不记得人生最初几年的事？

Did you ever wonder why you have no memory of when you were a baby or very young child？

你有没有想过，为什么你不记得当你是个婴幼儿时发生的事情？

Researchers in the United States are investigating1 this question. The researchers work at Temple University in Philadelphia， Pennsylvania.

美国的研究人员们正在研究这个问题。这些研究人员在宾夕法尼亚州费城的坦普尔大学工作。

The question of why adults do not remember how they learned to walk or talk has long been a mystery2.

成年人为什么不记得他们是如何学会走路或说话的，这长久以来一直是个谜。

Nora Newcombe is a psychology3 professor at the university. She joined Zoe Ngo， a Temple graduate student， in the memory research project.

诺拉·纽康比是这所大学的心理学教授。她同坦普尔大学的研究生佐伊·恩格一起，进行该记忆研究项目。

Newcombe says， “You know you learned how to walk and talk， but the funny thing is that you dont remember when and how you learned this.”

纽康比说：“你知道你学会了走路和说话，但有趣的是，你不记得你是什么时候和怎么学会的。”

The Temple University study involved computer■based tests. The tests were designed to work like games. They were given to 32 four■year■olds， 32 six■year■olds and 50 young adults.

坦普尔大学的研究涉及到计算机测试。测试像玩游戏一样轻松。该研究对32个四岁的孩子，32个六岁的孩子和50个年轻人进行测试。

The tests measured the memory process that helps people recognize differences between experiences， for example， a walk with your dog when you saw a friend， and a different walk without your dog or when you did not see your friend.

测试测量了记忆的过程，帮助人们识别不同体验之间的差异，例如：带着你的狗散步时，你遇到了一个朋友和没有你的狗陪伴时或没有遇到你的朋友时的不同的散步体验。

“In order to remember those kind of autobiographical4 events， you need to relate one element5 to another，” Newcombe said. She notes that many people often take walks in a favorite park， but the experience might differ one day from another.

紐康比说：“为了记住这些自传性的事件，你需要把一个元素与另一个元素联系起来。”她指出，很多人经常在最喜欢的公园里散步，但这个经历可能每天并不相同。

Special memory skills are needed to remember when different events happen， like meeting a friend， she said. It is known as relational6 memory.

她说，需要特殊的记忆技巧来记住不同的事情发生的时间，比如和一个朋友见面。这被称为关联记忆。

This skill would also be important to remembering where you parked your car today， compared to where you left it yesterday or last week.

相比于你昨天或上周停车的地方，这一技巧对于记住你今天把车停在哪里也很重要。

The second test involved showing the test subjects and a number of photographs. The children and young adults taking the test were asked to compare the first group of photos with a second set of pictures.

第二个测试涉及到测试对象和一些照片。研究人员要求参加测试的儿童和年轻人将第一组照片与第二组照片进行比较。

Sometimes， the two sets of photos were the same. But other times， they were different. Remembering differences in objects， such as pictures， is known as pattern separation.

有时，两组照片是一样的，但有时候是不同的。记忆物体上的差异，如图片的差异，被称为模式分离。

The results showed that in both tests， six■year■olds showed far better memory than 4■year olds. The six■year■olds performed about as well as the young adults on the two tests.

结果显示，在两项测试中，6岁儿童的记忆力都比4岁孩子的记忆力要好得多。在这两项测试中，6岁的孩子表现得和年轻人一样好。

The two tests suggest that memory skills are more advanced7 for six■year■olds than 4■year■olds. That might help explain why adults do not remember when they learned to walk or talk. But they do remember their third， fourth or fifth birthdays.

这两项测试表明，6岁的孩子的记忆技能比4岁的孩子的更成熟。这可能有助于解释为什么成年人不记得他们是什么时候学会走路或说话的，但他们还记得自己的三、四岁或五岁生日的情景。

“We dont have any memories in the first two years of life， and all of a sudden were able to form these memories for specific past events，” said Temple graduate student Zoe Ngo. “So， there must be something going on in early childhood or middle childhood thats very interesting.”

“在最初的两年里，我们没有任何记忆，突然之间，我们就能够形成这些过去的某些特定事件留存在我们脑海中的记忆”，坦普尔大学的研究生佐伊·恩格说，“因此，在我们童年或童年中期肯定有一些有趣的事情发生过。”

For some people， memory loss is just for recent events. People may not remember what they did that morning， but remember experiences from 50 years ago.

对有些人来说，对最近发生的事情也会记忆力减退。人们可能不记得那天早上做了什么，但却记得50年前的经历。

But memory loss research is not limited to helping Alzheimers patients.

但是對记忆丧失的研究并不只局限于为了帮助老年痴呆症患者。