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A Real-world What-Where-When Memory Test
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Fictional First Memories.

Shazia Akhtar1, Lucy V Justice2, Catriona M Morrison3

  • 11 Department of Psychology, City, University of London.

Psychological Science
|July 18, 2018
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Many people report early memories, but this study found nearly 40% of first memories were encoded before age 2. This challenges the typical understanding of childhood amnesia and early memory formation.

Keywords:
age at encodingage at retrievalchildhood amnesiafictional memoriesfirst memoriesnarrative memoriesopen data

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Human Memory

Background:

  • The established view suggests childhood amnesia, with few memories recalled before age 2.
  • Typical mean age at encoding for earliest memories is around 3 years old.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the age of encoding for first memories in a large sample.
  • To examine the prevalence of early memories (before age 2) and compare them to later memories.

Main Methods:

  • A large-scale survey of 6,641 respondents.
  • Respondents provided descriptions of their first memory and age at encoding.
  • Participants completed memory judgments and ratings.

Main Results:

  • The mean age at encoding for first memories was 3.2 years.
  • Nearly 40% of first memories (2,487 respondents) were dated to age 2 or younger.
  • 893 memories were dated to age 1 or younger.

Conclusions:

  • The findings challenge the established view of childhood amnesia.
  • A significant proportion of reported first memories may be improbable or fictional.
  • Further research is needed to understand the mechanisms behind these early memory reports.