Your Earliest Childhood Memory is Probably Fake

What is your earliest memory? In a study of more than 6,000 people, the average age of a first memory was 3.24 years, but 40% reported memories from age two or earlier. Some even recall being an infant. Is that even possible?

Researchers who have investigated memory development suggest that the neurological processes needed to form autobiographical memories are not fully developed until between the ages of three and four years. Other research has suggested that memories are linked to language development. Language allows children to share and discuss the past with others, enabling memories to be organised in a personal autobiography.

So how can I remember being a baby? And why did 2,487 people from our study remember events that they dated from the age of two years and younger?

Read about the study and possible explanations for people who remember infancy at Quartz.

(Image credit: Martin Falbisoner)

When I was age two to four, my family lived in a one-bedroom apartment. My memories of that time are mostly of still visual scenes containing an object that impressed me. My first profound memory was when my mother left me to give birth to my brother. She was only gone three nights, but it felt like a year to me. I was a little over three, so that seems quite normal. I recall sleeping under a window beside the kitchen sink, which is where they moved me to make room for the baby in the bedroom. But I dunno, I could have been sleeping in the kitchen that whole time.

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I remember climbing up and opening a cabinet in a built-in on top of my childhood bed. Peering inside the empty cabinet, I closed it up and climbed down. Years later, as an adult, I had the chance to visit my childhood home and was surprised to realize that the cabinet that I had remember opening actually had a false door. It was never openable.

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Let me see if I understand their premise. Their theory does not allow for early childhood memories so therefore they cannot really exist.

When facts disagree with theory, cognitive dissonance analysis says that there are four ways to respond. This is the simplest and the worst.

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