# Children's memory, unusual. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 21, 2004, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439 "2004-05-21T21:46:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/1 "2004-05-21T21:46:25Z")
Sometimes my niece says “remember when” and then mentions some event that I wasn’t present to witness. It’s almost as if she believes everything she sees I see. Is this a common phenomenon in children or is my niece just weird? ---
**Author:** ![Lobelia\_Overhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@Lobelia\_Overhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobelia_Overhill)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/2 "2004-05-21T22:26:42Z")
depends on what she’s remembering? An actual event she was involved in, or something she’s “imagining” … ? I knew someone who used to drive her family mad asking them "remember when … " and gibbering on about what I can only assume was a past life … ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/3 "2004-05-21T22:53:59Z")
Small children don’t understand that others can’t see everything they see until a certain age. It’s a developmental milestone, you can read about it in Piaget. My daughter routinely says ‘look at this!’ and thinks I can tell her what color something is when she’s standing across the room, with the picture facing her. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/4 "2004-05-21T23:11:23Z")
I saw an experiment on, uh, some show where they took a crayon box and replaced the crayons with birthday candles. They showed the box to kids and asked what was in the box. The kids all said crayons. They were then told to open the box and they were all surprised to discover candles instead of candles. Then Snoopy (a stuffed animal who was in the other room) was brought in. The kids were asked what Snoopy thinks in in the box. The responses varied by age. Four-year-olds said that Snoopy would expect candles. At about age five, the kids realized that since Snoopy was in the other room when the box was opened, he would expect crayons. At about age six, the kids thought the answer was so obvious that it was silly to even ask. So up until about age 5, kids think everyone know everything they know. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/5 "2004-05-21T23:24:38Z")
Maybe she’s actually saying “_I_ remember when…”, just not very clearly? (I know because I do that…) ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/6 "2004-05-21T23:29:21Z")
> [@DrMatrix](#): > > I saw an experiment on, uh, some show where they took a crayon box and replaced the crayons with birthday candles. They showed the box to kids and asked what was in the box. The kids all said crayons. They were then told to open the box and they were all surprised to discover candles instead of candles. Then Snoopy (a stuffed animal who was in the other room) was brought in. The kids were asked what Snoopy thinks in in the box. The responses varied by age. Four-year-olds said that Snoopy would expect candles. At about age five, the kids realized that since Snoopy was in the other room when the box was opened, he would expect crayons. At about age six, the kids thought the answer was so obvious that it was silly to even ask. > > So up until about age 5, kids think everyone know everything they know. Yep, saw it too, years ago. (So I don’t remember the show either. Probably PBS, though. Nova, maybe?) I’ve always wondered, though - don’t kids younger than that lie? Lying obviously requires the capacity to distinguish between one’s own and another’s experiences. Yet I’m sure I’ve heard cute stories about the (generally adorably ineffective) efforts of very young children to deceive their parents. Or are these stories exaggerations, or am I forgetting how old the kids in question were? Or is there some more complex explanation? ---
**Author:** ![tanookie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/48db29/32.png) [@tanookie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanookie)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/7 "2004-05-21T23:49:53Z")
Little kids are completely egocentric. They think you see what they do and know what they do. That’s why little kids have trouble talking on the phone - they think you can see what they see and talk to you like you are there in the room with them. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/8 "2004-05-22T05:22:06Z")
I ran across [this](http://www.talaris.org/index.htm) place while driving around our neighborhood recently. I googled them and found they are studying how the brains of young children work. One of their projects involves early memory. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/9 "2004-05-22T10:39:24Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Maybe she’s actually saying “_I_ remember when…”, just not very clearly? (I know because I do that…) I would tend to agree, either that or she has a misunderstanding of the exact nature and meaning of “remember when”. It might be more like an objective expression that she understands only as an invocation of her memory. Linguistically she might not understand that this expression infers a shared memory. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/10 "2004-05-22T14:41:12Z")
> [@tanookie](#): > > Little kids are completely egocentric. They think you see what they do and know what they do. That’s why little kids have trouble talking **on the phone - they think you can see what they see and talk to you like you are there in the room with them.** Exactly! She does that too (or did, until she was about 6) ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/11 "2004-05-22T14:45:33Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > I would tend to agree, either that or she has a misunderstanding of the exact nature and meaning of “remember when”. It might be more like an objective expression that she understands only as an invocation of her memory. Linguistically she might not understand that this expression infers a shared memory. That’s not it, because sometimes it’s a clear “do you remember”, and always phrased as a question. And she’s very intelligent for her age (I am not just saying that as her uncle). And by ‘little’ I assume people meen under 4. The last time I think she showed this sign that she assumes I can see what she sees or share her memories was about 6. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/12 "2004-05-22T14:47:40Z")
“meen”!? :smack: I mean ‘mean’. > [@DrMatrix](#): > > they were all surprised to discover candles instead of candles :dubious: (We know what you meant to say) ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/13 "2004-05-22T15:00:38Z")
There is another milestone in a child’s development that has always intriqued me. Ask a child if they have any brothers/sisters and they reply, “yes, my sister Emily”. If you then ask if _Emily_ has any brothers or sisters they answer no. Until a certain age at which time they recognize themselves as their sibling’s sib. Oh well, it has intriqued _me_. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/14 "2004-05-22T15:10:48Z")
> [@DrMatrix](#): > > At about age five, the kids realized that since Snoopy was in the other room when the box was opened, he would expect crayons. At about age six, the kids thought the answer was so obvious that it was silly to even ask. > > So up until about age 5, kids think everyone know everything they know. That’s also one of the tests for autism, because autistic children also tend to think everyone knows everything they know, so they expect Snoopy to expect candy. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-memory-unusual/246439/15 "2004-05-22T17:12:06Z")
For some reason it irritates the starch out of me to run across Piaget-style assertions about “child development” which appear to assume that little kids think this way as if Thought or Brain just morphed through these states like a caperpillar en route to becoming a butterfly rather than these just being pretty good generalizations about how the accumulation of understandings over time means certain (mis)understandings are common at certain ages. I guess it’s probably a trivial distinction. Anyhow, I think it’s too strong a statement to make that children of a certain age _can’t understand that other people don’t see things exactly as they do_. It is, instead, a gradual process. There are senses in which adults can be opaque to understanding that things look different depending on perspective, especially if underexposed to the stimulus of higher education. There are many anecdotes about people from unified monolingual-monocultural areas who just don’t grasp the concept of other languages and “why them folks want to speak that gibberish instead of talking normal” or “why evil people those foreign infidel devils refuse to submit to The Divine Entity”. And even right here in modern metropolitan cosmpolitan New York there’s no shortage of men who apparently think sexiness and sexual attractivenes is an inherent characteristic of females they find attractive and has nothing to do with the (maleness + heterosexuality) of the perceiving person. **Excalibre** : > [@](#): > > don’t kids younger than that lie? Lying obviously requires the capacity to distinguish between one’s own and another’s experiences. Exactly. People grasp some elements of “see world through another’s eyes” sooner than others. As you went on to say, very little kids may get enough of it to realize they can lie (and perceive reasons for doing so) and yet do so in a clumsy, transparent manner. At the age of 4, I ran away from nursery school, mad at a teacher; I climbed over the gate and walked home. Was confronted with it later and asked if I’d climbed over the gate, which was against the rule, and I lied (badly) saying I didn’t have to because “the gate was off” so I didn’t have to climb it when I made my escape.