Samuel

I have been working on a mechanism for memory on and off since 1978 (see a few results under my name on RG) and am fascinated by what I remember from earliest times. The first incident was in November 5th 1945, when I was sitting on a cold and wet shingle beach one night at Middleton on Sea whither my mother had moved to live with her parents to escape from Surbiton when a V2 Rocket bomb had destroyed the house and its occupants directly opposite on the other side of the street. This I do not recall since I would have been in the cellar and it would have been about a year earlier. What I recall a year later was being transfixed by a small bonfire built as a sort of upright tripod on the stony beach, as it blazed away allowed presumably for the first time since 1939 and the start of WW2. I then recall asking what those moving lights in the sky were, as an aeroplane flew across the night sky out to sea, and it was explained that now war was over, planes could fly with their lights on.

Whether it was this logical explanation that imprinted the occasion on my memory, aged two years and one month, or whether it was the brightness of the bonfire, or the sense of occasion of bonfire night, I cannot tell, but would like to think it was the former and possibly an early sensation of understanding some logical concept, but who knows. My next specific memory is my younger brother being brought home one year later by my parents from the hospital where he had just been born, but being more interested in the small portable radio, a Marconiphone it was called, that my father had brought as a sort of homecoming present for my mother. You pressed a button and the lid flew up and music came out: quite riveting from such a small object.

After that the memories start to proliferate in increasing series of incidents, none that significant: just household scenes in the middle 1940s from austerity Great Britain. My wife says she cannot remember anything much before her 12th birthday, and I think this is because she is really not interested in the past but being skilled on the visual arts side, enjoys hugely and is mainly impressed by current or the most recent visual and colourful images presented to her, whereas such experiences mean less to me, although I have some limited appreciation. I always want to know more about why and how those images, or actions, have occurred. In short I am driven by curiosity and want answers. That seems to me the difference, but she might disagree.

Nick

Dear Nicholas Greaves , what an amazing story! I am a visual person myself and I saw what you said as if I was there. You have very early memory, 2 years! Amazing! I really like the part you doubted the memories or the events you was told, you are right...it it good to remember as it is. I am not sure exactly when my first memory was, but I tell my mom what I remember as a kid, she always say that I can't possibly remember this because those things were happening when I was three and after. I was curious about things and was always on the move and it was really hard to my parents handle me. And I remember my mom complaining about me to her friend...so funny! I was three! After 4, I clearly remember details of events but not people's names.

Thank you for sharing your experience Nicholas Greaves and I will definitely read your works.

Cheers

Samuel

Hi Samuel. There is a massive amount of literature in psychology and the field of autobiographical memory about early childhood memories and childhood amnesia. Yes, we can remember things that happened when we were little. Agreed average is 3.5 years of age for earliest childhood memories, but there is a wide range of reported ages. The memories might be quite vivid although not very coherent or mainly consist of visual images... there are also individual and cultural differences about age of earliest memories. The literature tells us that women and people with more education have earlier earliest memories, as well as American people compared to Chinese people.

Some of these differences are attributed to paternal conversational style (low vs high elaboration) that parents (research mainly based on mothers) use when interacting with their children and in the way they talk about the past with them. Research also tells us that parents can be trained to be more elaborative in their conversations.

If you are interested in the scientific literature of this topic, I recommend work by Patricia Bauer, Qi Wang, Osman Kingo, Dorthe Bernsten, Peter Krøjgaard and Michelle Leichtman. They have great studies in collaboration with their colleagues. At Aarhus University (Denmark), I work at the Center on Autobiographical Memory Research (CON AMORE). Among other things, we study autobiographical memory development and our baby lab has interesting studies with infants using eye tracker technology and laboratory paradigms to investigate children's memories. You can follow the center's research in our website and on Facebook.

Website: conamore.au.dk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CenterOnAutobiographicalMemoryResearch/

Facebook, Baby Lab (mostly in Danish): https://www.facebook.com/babylabaarhusuniversitet/

Suggested readings:

Bauer, P. J., & Larkina, M. (2014). The onset of childhood amnesia in childhood: A prospective investigation of the course and determinants of forgetting of early-life events. Memory, 22, 907-924. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2013.854806

Kingo, O. S., Berntsen, D., & Krojgaard, P. (2013). Adults' earliest memories as a function of age, gender, and education in a large stratified sample. Psychology and Aging, 28, 646-653. doi: 10.1037/a0031356

Wang, Q., Leichtman, M. D., & Davies, K. I. (2000). Sharing memories and telling stories: American and Chinese mothers and their 3-year-olds. Memory, 8, 159-177. doi: 10.1080/096582100387588

Wang, Q. (2013). The autobiographical self in time and culture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press

The chapter on childhood amnesia and earliest memories has a nice table where she provides the mean and age ranges of the memories reported in many studies.

Dear Alejandra Zaragoza Scherman , I am very much grateful for your detailed and organized suggestion and comments. And yes I am very much interested to study and learn about memory though it is not my field of study. Good job! I will comeback to you in case I have some doubt.

regards

Hi Samuel. I am glad you found my response useful. Let me know if you have any questions or comments about the reading material I suggested. The authors are very good writers, but if you find the articles to be too technical, try Wang's book. That one is more targeted to non-psychologists and is a very good read. :D

Happy reading,

A.

Thank you Alejandra Zaragoza Scherman , important suggestion! I was thinking where to start and this really helps.

Cheers

Yes, the book is a good start. Read the whole thing if you are interested in autobiographical memory, in general. Or just read the chapter on childhood memories (Chapter 4), especially the table on pages 100-101 for the mean age of studies. Good luck.

Hi Samuel. Up to the age of 5-6 years the episodic memory capacity has not been developed. Until that moment the memories are fundamentally semantic, which implies that they can come from different sources besides the experiences. In any case, early childhood "memories" are memories built later. The phenomenological experiences that accompany those memories (vividness, emotions or sensations) are not an indicator that what we remember happened in that way. Time and multiple recovery tend to enrich the memories of this age that acquire the appearance of genuine episodic memory. This is a very interesting topic about which much research is still needed.

Best regards.

Yes, I remember things from my age of 4, 5, 6 years. I lost my father during the war when I was 6 year old, and I remembered and tried to keep memories connected with the important personality of my father.

Ignat Petrov

Dear Antonio L. Manzanero you mentioned an important point. Semantic and Episodic Memories! thank you for sharing your intellect and yes,as you mentioned, human memory either child hood or memories created during during different events are influenced by many factors both physiological (hormonal) or the physical surrounding. Many of our memories could be created based on our way of thinking, visualization ability and the situation we were in etc. Could two people (let's say, they are identical twins) have a different memory about something in the same situation?

Dear Ignat Petrov than you for sharing your childhood memory which is very important to you to keep. Have you noticed, we don't remember everything as a child but surprisings there are special events, could be good or bad, that are created like a read only memory in the disk, for good? Our brain prioritize in creating memories and decides which one should stay how long, isn't it amazing?