Self-awareness, the ability to think about yourself and how you are feeling is an important capacity of being human. 34 —a region of your brain just behind your forehead that extends to about your ears. Before this area begins to function at around age two, you don’t understand that you are a separate entity with your own identity. In time as this part of your brain develops, you then become more aware of yourself and your thoughts and feelings. 35 —the ability to retain and remember facts, faces, and experiences. What exactly is a memory? Most scientists define it as a stored pattern of connections between neurons in the brain. Every feeling you remember, every though you think, alters the connections within the vast network of brain cells, and memories are reinforced, weakened, or newly formed. Most people’s earliest memories reach back to about age three or so. 36 because the hippocampus, which helps form long-term memories is not yet mature. This doesn’t mean earlier memories don’t exist in your mind, though. Some scientists believe highly emotional memories, especially those associated with intense fear, might be stored in the amygdale that may be functional at birth. 37 , they might still influence the way we feel and behave, even into adulthood. (A) Very few people recall anything before this time (B) This part of your mind has its origins in the prefrontal cortex (C) Though these memories are not accessible to the conscious mind (D) Perhaps one of the most important factors involved in shaping our identity is memory