We really can't expect children to recall many details until they are in their early teens when the hippocampus is actually fully formed, a new study finds.
Previously, scientists thought that the hippocampus, a part of the brain responsible for memory and emotion, was fully developed by around age six.
The researchers gave adults and children between ages six and 14 a task to assess how well they remembered details, and found that that ability improved in line with the growth of two particular sub-regions of the hippocampus.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institutes in Berlin, Germany and the University of Stirling in Scotland found that significant changes occurred in the areas of the hippocampus responsible for recalling detail well after the age of six.
Six-year-old children are in a stage of rapid development.
At that age, their vocabularies grow by about ten words a day, their abilities to recognize patterns are improving, and their minds straddle the real and imagined worlds, which they describe in great detail.
But until they are about 14, this study reveals, children's ability to recall fine distinctions between two similar objects is still developing.
Researchers in Berlin, Germany showed images to children between ages six and 14, as well as adults, then showed them similar images with details slightly altered and asked them to recall general or specific characteristics.
