Over the past 60 years the neural correlates of human episodic memory have been the focus of intense neuroscientific scrutiny. By contrast, neuroscience has paid substantially less attention to understanding the emergence of this neurocognitive system. In this review we consider how the study of memory development has evolved. In doing so, we concentrate primarily on the first postnatal year because it is within this time window that the most dramatic shifts in scientific opinion have occurred. Moreover, this time frame includes the critical age (∼9 months) at which human infants purportedly first begin to demonstrate rudimentary hippocampal-dependent memory. We review the evidence for and against this assertion, note the lack of direct neurocognitive data speaking to this issue, and question how demonstrations of exuberant relational learning and memory in infants as young as 3-months old can be accommodated within extant models. Finally, we discuss whether current impasses in the infant memory literature could be leveraged by making greater use of neuroimaging techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which have been deployed so successfully in adults.

在过去的 60 年里，人类情景记忆的神经关联一直是神经科学密切关注的焦点。相比之下，神经科学对理解这种神经认知系统的出现的关注要少得多。在这篇综述中，我们考虑了记忆发展研究的发展历程。在此过程中，我们主要关注出生后第一年，因为正是在这个时间窗口内，科学观点发生了最戏剧性的转变。此外，这个时间范围包括据称人类婴儿首次开始表现出基本的海马依赖性记忆的临界年龄（〜9个月）。我们回顾了支持和反对这一主张的证据，注意到缺乏直接的神经认知数据来说明这个问题，并质疑如何在现有模型中容纳 3 个月大的婴儿的丰富关系学习和记忆的演示。最后，我们讨论了是否可以通过更多地利用神经影像技术来解决婴儿记忆文献中目前的僵局，例如磁共振成像（MRI），这些技术已在成人中成功应用。