Babies encode memories, but they’re unable to recall them later in life, a new study shows. This finding offers insight into the learning and recall process.

“The hallmark of [episodic memories] is that you can describe them to others, but that’s off the table when you’re dealing with pre-verbal infants,” Nick Turk-Browne, a psychology professor, director of the Yale Wu Tsai Institute, and study senior author said in an accompanying statement.

A new study indicates that memories of baby experiences might remain, lurking in the deepest recesses of the mind, and adults simply aren’t capable of accessing them. Researchers found that infants do indeed form memories of specific events,