This is The Guardian.

Hi, Ian here. Science Weekly is on a break, but we'll be back with a new episode for you on Tuesday.

For now, we're revisiting an episode tackling a question I've always wondered about.

Why can't we remember being babies?

Back in March, I spoke to Professor Nick Turk Brown, who'd just published an intriguing new

piece of research looking into this, and the findings were fascinating. We hope you enjoy it.

What's your earliest memory?

Is it getting ready for your first day of school?

Feeding the ducks in the park on your fourth birthday?

Throwing up on the long car journey to grandmas.

Or maybe you can go back even further.

When I give lectures on this topic, inevitably somebody raises their hand and says,

I remember being born. It very well could be possible, at least in some cases and some people.

But if I had to bet, I would say that it's very unlikely that humans have any accurate episodic memories through their

first person experience before the age of three or four. Nick Turk Brown is a professor

of psychology and neuroscience at Yale University. He's studying why we can't recall our early lives, even when we think we can.

It very much is more about remembering stories they were told about themselves or scenes that

they've constructed in their mind based on videos or photographs. So why do we lack memories of our first steps,

drawing pictures in nursery,

or going on our first holiday?

It's a mystery that scientists and parents have long puzzled over,

but research exploring baby's brains

...