ABSTRACT
In his Confessions, Saint Augustine marveled at everyday mnemonic process, likening memory to a “spacious palace” in which is stored “the treasures of innumerable images, brought into it from things of all sorts perceived by the senses . . . for thought to recall” (Saint Augustine, ~401 ..). In the two millennia since Saint Augustine wrote these words our explanations of memory and how it functions have moved beyond the poetic metaphor of a “spacious palace” to the more concrete realities of modern psychological and neural sciences. However, what has not changed is the nature of the phenomenon we are attempting to explain. In his time, Saint Augustine wondered how one “discern(s) the breath of lilies from violets, though smelling nothing . . . but remembering only.” Present day psychologists and neuroscientists are asking essentially the same question as we ponder how the roughly 1500 grams (3½ pounds) of tissue that sits in the bony case atop our shoulders manages to vividly re-create-and even allows us to re-live-events and experiences from the past. The modern day developmental scientist further questions how the material substrate and the processes it subserves develops from infancy through childhood.
