How can a dad tragically forget his baby in the car? Experts say we all suffer lapses, which are often brought on by stress and multitasking.
By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published August 5, 2004
When 3 1/2-month-old Mackenzee Hynes died in her father's car last week - left there for hours on a blazing Florida day - many people's response was, "How could someone forget his child?"
But all of us can remember forgetful moments: the briefcase on top of the car, the scorched pot on the stove, the missed appointment.
Usually, the consequences are minor. But whether trivial or tragic, they often are the result of our compulsion to multitask. Because of the way our brains function, the more we try to do, the more likely we are to forget things.
"Memory is complicated," says David Diamond, a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida. Different parts of our brains remember different things, and they don't always work together well. "There's sort of a competition among the brain's memory systems."
Diamond studies the effects of stress on the brain and memory. He says the apparent failure of memory that resulted in Mackenzee's death probably wasn't that different from the kind of memory glitches we all suffer.
Edward Hynes, 30, drove to work Friday to start a 7 a.m. shift as a carpet cleaner. His wife, Melanie, had started a new job that week, and he had taken over the task of dropping their daughter at day care in Inverness.
On Friday, he didn't make the stop. He drove to work, left the baby in her car seat, got in his work van and left. When his wife called at about 3 p.m. to ask why Mackenzee wasn't at day care, Hynes frantically returned to his car.
The temperature in Inverness that day had reached 93 degrees. The child was pronounced dead at the scene.
The case seems to be an example of how memory can misfire. Hynes was performing several tasks at once, combining the familiar routine of going to work with the new behavior of dropping off the child. Researchers say the brain's memory systems can sometimes conflict with each other when they have a lot to process at once. "His basal ganglia have got him doing a routine," Diamond says, "and the prefrontal cortex wasn't able to override it."
The basal ganglia form one of the motor areas deep within the brain, Diamond says, and one of their functions is to allow us to do some familiar behaviors automatically.
We all know the sensation of "going on autopilot," such as walking or driving a familiar route and arriving at our destination with next to no memory of our trip. The basal ganglia retain the motor memories that let us do such repetitive tasks.
That kind of motor memory frees up other parts of the brain to do other things. Vivid "flashbulb" memories of trauma or emotional experiences, for example, are formed by the hippocampus and amygdala, Diamond says.
One of the most critical parts of the brain for handling the demands of daily life is the prefrontal cortex, located just behind the forehead.
"It's essential to making good decisions, paying attention and forming short-term memory," Diamond says.
The prefrontal cortex is one of the slowest parts of the brain to develop. It usually reaches full function only when people are well into their teens, he says.
"It's the part of the brain that has to remind you to interrupt routines" to do something out of the ordinary. "Unfortunately, it's also one of the parts of the brain that's most sensitive to stress."
When you're doing several things at once, Diamond says, credit the prefrontal cortex. "It's what lets you drive, listen to music, have a conversation and still arrive at your destination.
"But when we're stressed, it doesn't work very well. You can't do three things at once because you're trying to figure out where you got lost."
Jordan Grafman also studies the prefrontal cortex's role in learning and memory. He is chief of the cognitive neuroscience section of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.
"Even when you multitask, you usually prioritize," he says. But under stress, the ability of the prefrontal cortex to order our tasks can be reduced.
"We all have procedures," Grafman says of the autopilot effect. "When you go into that mode, without some additional cue or aid, you may forget a new task."
Trying to do too many things at once also can reduce judgment. One of Grafman's first questions about the Hynes' baby's death was whether her father was talking on a cell phone when he left his car.
He says he often sees people who think they can layer that task on top of others safely, but they may be asking too much of their prefrontal cortexes.
"You see it all the time. We're talking away on the cell phone and we just cross the street, right into traffic. That's a life-threatening situation, too, but we do it."
Grafman says, "Day-to-day stress won't affect brain function. But persistent stress combined with a sense of helplessness can be toxic to the brain."
Grafman says people who feel stressed shouldn't hesitate to use memory aids to back up their brains, especially when they're doing something outside their normal routine. "In unusual situations, people are more prone to making errors."
A busy parent transporting a baby can do several things to draw attention to the child. "If you're in the front and the baby's in the back, use a baby mirror to see the back seat. Put a baby toy in the front seat with you, or purposely put something in the back with the baby that you need, a briefcase or purse.
"Manipulate your environment to force you to pay attention."
Jean Shoemaker works at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg as the coordinator of Safe Kids Suncoast, a local chapter of the National Safe Kids Campaign. The organization's efforts include working to reduce the number of children who die when left in hot cars.
Her basic advice: "Never, ever leave your child alone in a car, even for a minute."
But sometimes a parent doesn't make a conscious decision to leave the child.
Although it may be difficult to imagine simply forgetting a child is in the car, Shoemaker says many of the reports she hears indicate that it happens.
She says she has heard a number of reports of parents who did not usually drive their child to day care or other places forgetting, often because they were focused on work, that they had a passenger.
"People have to realize that at some point your brain gets overloaded," she says.
Diamond, the USF professor, says that even though he studies memory, "I've basically given up trying to remember everything I have to do.
"I tell my son, who's just like me, that if you depend solely on your memory, you'll fail so often that you'll get frustrated."
Diamond says he uses alarms on his watch and computer to remind him of meetings. Visual cues are helpful, too. If he must bring something to work with him, he says, he puts it right beside the door. "But if I get in a big hurry, I move it out of the way and leave it at home."
Diamond says research shows that good nutrition, good general health and exercise all improve memory. He is preparing to publish a study that shows that rats fed a high-fat diet had higher levels of those stress hormones that can affect the brain.
Diamond also says we can demand too much of ourselves. He used to park his car at the airport and assume he would remember where it was a week later. "It was this big macho thing: I know where my car is parked. Then I'd spend an hour looking all over the lot for it.
