Leaving Time
“Leaving Time” by Jodi Picoult is a gripping novel that intertwines mystery, grief, and the bond between humans and elephants. The story follows Jenna Metcalf, a 13-year-old girl searching for her mother, Alice, a renowned elephant researcher who disappeared a decade earlier under mysterious circumstances. With the help of a skeptical psychic and a disgraced detective, Jenna uncovers buried secrets about her mother’s work and the tragic events at an elephant sanctuary. The novel explores themes of memory, loss, and maternal love, while weaving in fascinating insights into elephant behavior and emotions. Picoult blends emotional depth with suspense, culminating in a surprising twist that redefines the narrative.
Chapter 34: Alice
byPicoult, Jodi
The chapter explores the neurological and developmental reasons behind infants’ inability to remember early experiences, attributing it to their lack of language capacity. It explains that infants’ vocal cords are not fully developed, limiting their communication to distress cries triggered by a direct neural pathway from the amygdala to the larynx. This primal alarm system is so effective that even individuals with no childcare experience, like college students, instinctively respond to a baby’s cry. The section highlights how this biological wiring serves as a survival mechanism before language acquisition.
As children grow and develop speech capabilities, the nature of their crying changes, leading to different social responses. The chapter notes that by age two or three, a child’s cry becomes less likely to elicit sympathy and more likely to provoke annoyance in others. This shift forces children to adapt by using verbal communication to seek attention, marking a critical transition in their social development. The text underscores how societal expectations shape communication methods as children mature.
The chapter then examines the persistence of the amygdala-larynx connection into adulthood, despite its diminished everyday utility. This primal neural pathway remains dormant until triggered by extreme fear or surprise, such as encountering a threat in the dark. When activated, it produces an involuntary, distinctive scream that differs from voluntary vocalizations. The author emphasizes that this response is deeply ingrained in human biology, serving as an evolutionary relic of our infant defense mechanisms.
Finally, the passage reflects on the remarkable continuity of this physiological response from infancy through adulthood. It suggests that while humans develop sophisticated communication skills, we retain this primitive alarm system as a last-resort survival tool. The chapter concludes by highlighting how such biological mechanisms, though rarely used, remain an intrinsic part of our neurological makeup, ready to activate in moments of true terror. This insight bridges developmental psychology with evolutionary biology, showing how early survival mechanisms persist throughout life.
FAQs
1. Why can’t infants remember events from when they were very small, according to the chapter?
Answer:
Infants cannot remember early events because they lack the language capacity to describe them. Their vocal cords are not fully developed until a certain age, limiting their communication to using the larynx primarily for emergency situations. The chapter explains that infants have a direct neural projection from the amygdala to the larynx, enabling them to cry quickly in extreme distress. This cry is a universal signal that typically prompts others to offer assistance. Without language, however, these early experiences cannot be encoded into long-term memory in the same way as verbalized experiences.2. How does people’s response to a child’s crying change as the child grows older?
Answer:
As children grow and their larynx matures, their crying sound changes, becoming less effective at eliciting help and more likely to provoke annoyance in others. The chapter notes that by age two or three, children learn to “use their words” because verbal communication becomes the primary way to gain attention. This shift occurs because the infant’s distress cry—which universally triggers assistance—evolves into a more complex vocalization that people perceive differently, often as bothersome rather than urgent.3. What happens to the amygdala-larynx connection as a person matures, and how does it function in adulthood?
Answer:
The direct neural projection from the amygdala to the larynx remains intact throughout life, even as vocal cords develop around it. While this connection is rarely used in daily communication, it becomes active during moments of extreme terror, producing an involuntary “alarm” sound. The chapter describes this as a primal response—such as when someone is startled by a threat—and notes that the sound produced is one that a person could not consciously replicate. This mechanism highlights how the brain retains certain infantile survival responses into adulthood.4. Analyze the evolutionary purpose of the infant distress cry and its diminishing effectiveness with age.
Answer:
The infant distress cry likely evolved as a survival mechanism, ensuring that caregivers respond immediately to a baby’s needs. Its universality—even eliciting responses from inexperienced individuals like college-aged boys—underscores its biological importance. However, as children grow, the cry’s effectiveness diminishes because it no longer serves the same critical function; instead, society expects verbal communication. This shift reflects how humans transition from relying on instinctual signals to using learned language for more nuanced interactions. The chapter implies that this change is adaptive, prioritizing complex communication over reflexive cries as cognitive abilities develop.5. How might the chapter’s explanation of the amygdala-larynx connection apply to understanding panic responses in adults?
Answer:
The chapter’s description of the retained amygdala-larynx pathway suggests that certain panic responses in adults are hardwired from infancy. For example, a sudden scream during a life-threatening situation—distinct from voluntary shouts—may stem from this primal circuit. Understanding this connection could help psychologists differentiate between voluntary vocalizations and involuntary stress reactions, potentially informing therapies for anxiety disorders or PTSD. The text implies that some fear responses are deeply biological, resisting conscious control, which underscores the importance of addressing such reactions with both psychological and physiological approaches.
Quotes
1. “One reason infants can’t remember events when they are very small is that they don’t have the language to describe them. Their vocal cords simply aren’t equipped, until a certain age, which means instead they use their larynxes for emergency situations only.”
This opening insight establishes the chapter’s exploration of the connection between language development and memory formation in early childhood. It introduces the biological basis for infant communication limitations.
2. “It’s such a universal sound that studies have been done showing that just about every other human—even college-age boys who have no experience with babies—will try to provide assistance.”
This quote highlights the evolutionary significance of infant distress signals, demonstrating how deeply programmed our response to babies’ cries is across all humans regardless of experience.
3. “As the child grows, the larynx matures and is capable of speech. The sound of crying changes as babies turn two or three, and as it does, people not only become less likely to want to help them but actually respond to the sound with feelings of annoyance.”
This passage marks a key developmental transition, showing how communication expectations shift as children age and how society’s responses change accordingly.
4. “But what happens to that original projection, the nerve that runs from the amygdala to the larynx? Well… nothing. Even as vocal cords grow up around it like heliotrope, it stays where it was, and is very rarely used.”
This biological observation reveals how primal fear responses remain neurologically intact even as we develop more sophisticated communication abilities, setting up the chapter’s conclusion about involuntary reactions to terror.