How Accurate Is Your First Childhood Memory?
By Macy Kaufenberg
What is the earliest childhood memory you can remember? Some people may find this question to be difficult to think of and others can spew out a memory right away. An example of an early childhood memory that a person remembered as an adult is , “However I do remember getting car sick when we moved to Washington from Texas in 1979 when I was 2 and a half years old. I remember feeling something like anxiety (vaguely) and attempting to conceal that I was car sick and that it didn’t work. I remember throwing up in the restaurant we went to after getting out of the car” (Parker, 2018). Many of you may have similar memories like this one, but the real question is- Are they actual memories?
I hate to break it to you, but any memories you may think you have before the age of 3 are what scientists like to call “impossible memories”. What exactly are impossible memories, and how do they happen? Research has long established that as adults we cannot accurately retrieve memories from our infancy and early childhood. Baby brains simply are not yet physiologically capable of forming and storing long-term memories (Murray,2003). One of the biggest reasons memories as an infant are almost impossible to remember is infantile amnesia, and yes this is an actual thing that happened to you! Before you get upset that your parents never told you you had amnesia when you were an infant, let me break it down for you.
It’s really hard for people to remember memories as a young child because young children don’t have a good grasp on language and can’t use word cue’s to help trigger a memory because they don’t know much about language yet. Just think about it, if you experienced a fun event at a young age, but don’t have the ability to communicate about it, how are you going to store it in your memory? It would be very difficult! “If preschoolers and even infants remember unique events over long periods of time, why then as adults are we unable to recall early childhood? The answer likely lies in the complement of remembering, namely, forgetting. Forgetting is in fact a critical component of the definition of childhood amnesia” (Bauer,2004). Since we aren’t able to express the memories we have when we are young, we eventually just forget them, which makes sense.
When children get older they are able to talk more and talk about different things that happen to them, because of this they will remember the new things that happened to them and forget the old things that happened to them when they were an infant. If this information still isn’t convincing enough for you and you “swear” you remember things from your early childhood, well let me introduce you to a little thing called source confusion. Source confusion is when we forget the source of information and misattribute it to our own memory or experience (Murray, 2003). I’ll admit that source confusion happens to me every so often. One person will tell me some interesting information and I’ll tell another person (sometimes even the same person) the information thinking I came up with the information on my own. Source confusion doesn’t discriminate on age, anyone can be a victim to it!
There was a study done in the Netherlands on 45 children ages 8-10 years old. The researcher wanted to see if they could get the children to believe a false memory. They would ask them about an event that actually happened, the parents would give the researchers details about their child’s first day of school, and the children would explain more about it. Then the researchers gave a false story, that the child was in a hot air balloon ride, and have the child tell more about that experience. Each child was interviewed twice about the story they were told and the results concluded that 58% of the children had a partial or false memory about the false story they were told (Otgaar et al., 2012). This study shows that even at 8 years old children are fairly easy to believe memories that didn’t happen. Children who are even younger, let's say 3 years old, and they hear the same story about themselves about something they did when they were an infant over and over again, it makes sense why they would put that story into their memory and believe that it was something they experienced and remember doing when they get older
In conclusion, not a single person will remember anything that happened to them when they were a baby/infant due to infantile amnesia. If a person believes that they have a special memory they remember at that age, it’s more than likely due to source confusion. Just because you don’t actually personally remember those experiences and memories that happened to you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t cherish them and still remember them! This happens to everyone, and will continue on happening for generations of babies to come, but on the plus side, at least we don’t remember wearing diapers and eating baby food!
Bauer, P. (2004). Oh Where, Oh Where Have Those Early Memories Gone? A Developmental
Perspective on Childhood Amnesia. Science. https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2004/12/bauer .
Murray, B. (2003). The Seven Sins of Memory. Monitor, 34 (9). 28. https://www.apa.org/monitor/oct03/sins .
Otgaar, H. et al. (2012). The Origin of Children's Implanted False Memories: Memory Traces or
Compliance? Acta Psychologica, 139 (3) 397–403. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2012.01.002.
Parker, A. (May 15, 2018). “I remember things that happened when I was around 2 years old or less .Does it
mean that I have a high IQ” Quora. https://www.quora.com/I-remember-things-that-happened-when-I-was-around-2-years-old-or-less-Does-it-mean-that-I-have-a-high-IQ .