The moments we remember from the first years of our lives are often our most treasured because we have carried them longest. The chances are, they are also completely made up.
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Around four out of every 10 of us have fabricated our first memory, according to researchers. This is thought to be because our brains do not develop the ability to store autobiographical memories at least until we reach two years old.
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Memory researchers have shown it is possible to induce fictional autobiographical memories in volunteers, including accounts of getting lost in a shopping mall and even having tea with a member of the Royal Family. Julia Shaw, a psychological scientist at University College London, has even shown it is possible to convince people that they committed a violent crime that never happened. Using memory retrieval techniques, participants were asked leading questions over three interviews, which led to 70% of them generating a false memory of a crime they commited when they were younger, with some even believing they had assaulted someone with a weapon. Almost three-quarters with these false memories could even provide vivid descriptions of what police officers looked like.
I have read about false memory induction before. My first memory is from age 3, and I am skeptical of anyone claiming they have a first memory at a younger age than 2.5 years old.
These people may be remembering stories their relatives told them about things they did as infants, and creating a “memory” from those stories.
I have a couple of very clear childhood memories from the age of three and more from later. I have good reason to believe those are true but I certainly am susceptible to ‘induced memories’ like everyone else.
I can recall a real memory and add things like smell, sound. Some object in the background. They will be there next I time I remember.
I think this happens in subtle ways that we don’t notice. There’s a strong tendency to fill in missing gaps in our memories. When we recall events we expect a coherent narrative and tend to unconsciously ‘fill’ out the story to make it so.
I don’t think we should assume the brain is an unbiased archivist. We know it has a tendency to forget unpleasant things. There’s infidelity right there. But it’s generally not useful to remembers such experiences too vividly. Seems plausible to me that given a random sequence of events the brain will try to remember them in a way that’s useful or friendly.
Agree with @FuchsiaPseudonym. I think the brain before age 3 is so different that one cannot really undertand that creature’s experiences.
Fragments makes more sense to me than full memories, and I have read that the age when infantile amnesia ends differs between individuals. I don’t think enough studies have been done on very early childhood memories (as far as I know), and I believe that folks with a naturally good autobiographical memory may remember events from earlier ages.
My earliest memories are from when I was 2, but I’m not sure how far into the year it was. They could be false memories, but I don’t think so, because they involve someone who died when I was 2. I remember a medical device that probably wouldn’t have been kept around for long. I also have another memory from a preschool I went to when I was 2. They are faint impressions, except for the preschool one which is more like a few seconds.
I’ve often wondered about this:
You have a memory when you’re 2 (or whenever).
You think about it regularly until you’re old enough to form regular memories.
Wouldn’t that preserve the memory? You aren’t accessing the memory directly across a span of 10 or 20 years, but are accessing a memory that has been continually reinforced since it happened.
I’ve heard that a memory gets slightly distorted each time you recall it, which means that although I have this memory from age 3, it isn’t exactly fully accurate, like I don’t remember that I was in my carseat (which I’m sure I was) or I recall it with the car we bought when I was in kindergarten. I’ve read that this is what causes issues with eyewitness testimony.