In research published in the journal Memory, Patricia Bauer and her colleague Marina Larkina brought in groups of 3-year-olds with a parent (typically a mother, as in most child development studies). The parent interviewed the child about events that had happened over the prior three months, like a visit to a zoo or preschool, while the researchers videotaped.⁠ ⁠ Over the next 6 years, different groups of children came back at ages 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 to the lab and were questioned by the scientists on the events that happened when they were 3. Since the researchers knew the details of the events, they were able to probe exactly how much the kids remembered — and how they spoke about the memories.⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ The result? If the kids were between 5 and 7 at the time of the second interview, they remembered over 60% of events, Bauer tells KinderLab. But the children who were 8 and 9 remembered 40% or fewer of the events, and they had begun to talk about their memories in a different way.⁠ ⁠...