11 ms·

Childhood amnesia kicks in around age 7

drcube 13y ago
I remember several things from before I was 3 (and plenty more after that), but I'm always unsure if it is an actual memory, or a memory of a memory. I was a pretty introspective kid. I thought about my past and tried to recall my childhood even at the young age of 5. So perhaps my earliest memories are really just memories of being 6 or 7 and thinking back to when I was 2. Second hand memories, so to speak.
- thirdsight 13y ago
  Perhaps your memories are things your parents said when you were 7 that you did when you were two as well? That's how I figure it works in my head.
  - drcube 13y ago
    I suspect many of my early memories come from my parents, but there are quite a few that they don't remember at all. Those are probably memories of memories.
- sreevishwa 13y ago
  That's pretty cool. A large majority (including me) are completely blank about anything before age 6 or so.
- scrabble 13y ago
  I have first hand memories from when I was 2. One of them was my mother getting in a car accident when she was bringing home McDonalds. I didn't really understand what a car accident was and was more concerned about the McDonalds. But we went out to pick her up and I understood better. (She was ok.) Another was me sitting in a high chair and looking up at a window. When I was 3 or 4 I broke my nose playing on a playground. I remember that well. And I remember things from kindergarten and a lot of things from grade one.
- bane 13y ago
  I agree. I definitely remember things from before 7. Not many things, mostly flashes of images and textures of objects. My earliest memory is a vague memory when I was in a crib. Based on certain specific details of that memory my parents place it to when I was around 2. I remember vague details of the homes we lived in after I was 3 or 4, but not the first home we lived in at all. Apparently I had a very bad fall at some point and put one of my new teeth through my lip and made a bloody mess everywhere. I have a scar there to this day, but don't remember the event in the least. I remember my mother teaching me the alphabet with a foam alphabet mat [1] and how to tie my shoes when I was probably 3 or 4. I also remember the moment my mother taught me the difference between how to say "three" and "tree" and permanently corrected what would have been a difficult speech impediment. I remember my Kindergarten teacher's name and my favorite toys from when I was 4 and 5. But the number and quantity of my childhood memories explodes after I entered 1st grade at 6. I feel like I remember more about 1st and 2nd grade then I do about most of the rest of my elementary and middle school education combined. Some really detailed events even. 1 - http://www.lcevafoam.com/img/Product/FM-910.jpg http://www.lcevafoam.com/img/Product/FM-910.jpg
- _sabe_ 13y ago
  I remember most of my childhood. I also know I have clear memories before the age of 3, because we moved to another country at that time, so it easy to distinguish the memories before/after the move. Talking to other people about this tough have made me realize it's quite unusual. I know tough that before age 25 all memories where real, but now getting older the memories are becoming memories of memories, and it saddens me a lot.
DanielStraight 13y ago
Does anyone know of other research about how to promote increased retention of early childhood memories?
- fortepianissimo 13y ago
  Near the end of the article: "Specifically, mothers who used more "deflections", such as "Tell me more" and "What happened?" tended to have children who subsequently recalled more details of their earlier memories."
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    It's interesting it specifies mothers - this suggests that there was a difference with the effect with fathers. Or that they only looked at children who never chat with their fathers?
    - Mz 13y ago
      Or (it suggests) that father's are frequently the primary breadwinner and typically have less to do with child rearing?
      - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
        From the OP [Bauer and Larkina, the authors http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/bauer/lab/people.html http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/bauer/lab/people.h... incidentally] >Another important finding was that the style mothers used when chatting with their 3-year-olds was associated with the level of remembering by those children later on. Specifically, mothers who used more "deflections", such as "Tell me more" and "What happened?" tended to have children who subsequently recalled more details of their earlier memories. // It only mentions mothers. Suggesting either fathers were scientifically accounted for - the only way would appear to be by using subjects without contact with their father [or similar figure]. Or, that children chatting with fathers doesn't elicit the same response in recall and this was measured as insignificant and hence discounted. The assumption that [all] children only chat over memories with mothers would be a rather massive flaw in a scientific analysis. [Yes there are of course other influences, primarily siblings I imagine, that are also unaccounted for]. Even if we assume that father's are absent during the events that are later recalled then interactions with father's could be more important. In that assumed environment mothers [or other carers] being present don't have to have details recalled to them; but I'm heading off-piste there. The specification of it being "mothers" not "parents" or "primary care-givers" - assuming scientific rigour - must be important. A quick search [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28Bauer+PJ[Author]%29+AND+%28mother+OR+maternal%29 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28Bauer+PJ[Author]...] against Bauer PJ shows 10 papers on childhood memory which in abstract appear to all refer solely to maternal influence; though without reading the papers (I don't have access) or discussing them with the authors one can't really draw further conclusions. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28Bauer+PJ[Author]%29+AND+%28father+OR+paternal%29 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28Bauer+PJ[Author]... returns no results. [Interesting, this relates http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/fivush/lab/FivushLabWebsite/GenderAM.html http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/fivush/lab/FivushL...]
ToastyMallows 13y ago
All I remember about when I was young is due to looking at photo/video of the event, and then later on, when I'm "remembering" the event, I'm really remembering the photo/video. I'd say I have close to 0 legitimate memories of when I was young. Anyone else?
- Loughla 13y ago
  Until now, I believed that remembering a lot from early childhood was normal. I have many very vivid memories from under the age of 5; playing hide and seek, playing with lego, playing outside and being around family members on our family farm, I even remember big family meals from when I was around 4. I honestly thought this was normal until about 10 minutes ago.
  - ToastyMallows 13y ago
    See I remember nothing before, I dunno, lets be liberal and say 13 years old. I feel different than everyone else, like my uncle has a great memory of when he was young.
    - buckbova 13y ago
      I can barely remember high school or college. I can't name a professor from college right now, although I can picture a few faces. I played sports for all four years of high school but can't recall anything but a few flashes. I don't think this is completely normal, but why dwell on the past anyway. Try to live in the now.
      - cma 13y ago
        Just curious, did you play (american) football and suffer any concussions?
    - Cookingboy 13y ago
      You don't remember elementary school and middle school? May I ask how old you are now? I still have friends I occasionally talk to from elementary school, and I vividly remember the stuff I did back in kindergarten as well.
codva 13y ago
I remember my parents dropping me at the neighbors when they went to hospital to give birth to my brother. I was a month shy of 3. Then I have nothing until I'm about 5.
steeve 13y ago
I had meningitis when I was 2, and I clearly remember a flash of when I was in the hospital bed, with all the gear monitoring me, trying to reach out for my blanket. My mother confirmed my story when I was ~20. It's pretty vivid actually, and not only do I remember the "scene" but also how I felt and what I thought. I have a few others like that, but this is the most ancient.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
Morgawr 13y ago
I remember a few things that happened to me when I was 2 years old. Mostly some events when I used to play with my cat or with legos in my room. I'm fairly sure those aren't constructed memories, not sure why some specific memories have stuck with me compared to others from such an early age (they were nothing particular, really, no special events). The human brain is such a fascinating thing.
goatforce5 13y ago
My earliest (or one of the earliest) memories is of a guy in a mascot costume coming to our preschool to promote a bank. I think they gave us some money boxes, and I guess they were trying to teach us about the importance of saving money. I would have been 3 or 4 at the time. 35+ years on I can still vividly remember the mascot, which bank it was, etc. It saddens me that my earliest memory is of a form of advertising.
- pavel_lishin 13y ago
  I wonder, if there was a video available of this, how closely your memory would match the actual event.
- yannk 13y ago
  So... How good of a saver have you been since then?
mililani 13y ago
I have distinct memories of when I was 2-3 y.o. that have astounded my parents. I was raised in Korea till I was about 3, then we all flew to Hawaii to immigrate to the U.S. I remember the flight, I remember my life in Korea, I remember going to the public spa's with my dad, I remember feeling ashamed of my nudity in front of many older folks around me. I told all of this to my parents later in life, and they were amazed. I even distinctly remember the time when I thought I was lost, being scared, walking through a tunnel only to emerge to find a statue of some Korean soldiers. My parents found me and took a picture of me pointing at that statue. I asked my mom about that time, and I said, "How did I get lost? I was scared." My mom said that they were following me from afar, making sure I didn't see them, and they wanted to see how I would explore the world. I've told people about this many times. And, people just can't or won't believe me. A history professor told me that this is impossible, because children can't remember anything before the age of 3. He was adamant about it, and completely dismissive of my claims. I think these kinds of pseudo-scientific research (you know, taking polls and applying statistics) should be taken with a grain of salt. One should NOT draw definitive conclusions from them.
- mathattack 13y ago
  There are always outliers. You should feel blessed!
- crimsonalucard 13y ago
  You're not the only person. I also remember things from around age 2 to 3. It all gets really blurry before that. Most people I know don't remember anything before 5.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jpeg_hero 13y ago
  There was sort of research that showed that this happens more often in early immigration situations (ie person emigrates as a very young child and subsequently retains early childhood memories from their "home country") Fascinating
jayhuang 13y ago
I remember one event from back when I was a bit over 1. My mom took me to her friend's shop, they had 2 daughters and a chihuahua. One of the daughters (~5 years old) picked up the chihuahua and held it in front of my stroller, within reach. She urged me to pet it, and when I did, the dog bit the first joint of my left ring finger off. I remember that part, I remember crying, but I don't remember having it sewn back on. To this day, I'm irrationally horrified of tiny dogs (I like big ones as long as they don't bark and show teeth). Sidenote: Whoever sewed it back on didn't do a very good job; you can see it's slightly slanted and a bit rotated too. =( I'm thankful for getting it back though.
mathattack 13y ago
What about forgetting your 20s? I can barely remember what I used to eat before I learned how to cook. I assume that it was a lot of macaroni and cheese, pasta and mashed potatoes, but I can't really remember.
- sejje 13y ago
  It was pizza, man.
- Paul_S 13y ago
  You're not alone. It annoys me a bit when people reminisce about their childhood and say things like "do you remember when" because I don't remember any of mine. In fact I don't remember my teens and come to think of it my uni seems a bit foggy. Any memories from highschool and such I know for a fact are second hand so I suspect maybe some people don't realise this - I'm more willing to believe in how easily we make false memories. I remember things as told to me by others even if they told me about it long ago. Riddle me that. I don't have amnesia, learning difficulties etc. Maybe I should keep a diary but it's a bit late for that.
  - gmaslov 13y ago
    Don't worry -- it just means your brain's eviction policy is well-tuned for immortality. ;)
    - Paul_S 13y ago
      I hope my brain is putting all those reclaimed neurons to good use then but it's probably just storing pins and passwords which I remember for decades after not needing them any more. Wish I could talk to the bit of the brain that decides what should be kept.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    I have a friend in his 40s with razor sharp accurate childhood memory. I always assumed it was because he never got into drinking, even in undergrad.
jbverschoor 13y ago
I recall very very little specific memories before 12 even. I know flashes...
adinb 13y ago
Now they need to test for the type of memory recalled, is there a difference in emotionally laden memories vs non emotional 'moment' or experience based memories? And what is the recall on 'pure' emotional memories?(Where the memory is primarily about the emotion, not what was occuring at the time). This would be incredibly useful in counseling psychology (and possibly neuropsych), where emotional based memories can get corrupted or ingrained into a person's overall personality. (Think of getting burned by a stove becoming anything from a subconscious jerk away from a stove to full phobias).
vitd 13y ago
There's also parental amnesia where as soon as a person has a child, they completely forget what it was like to be a child and get very frustrated that their children aren't adults. I see it all the time in colleagues.
Shank 13y ago
If I had to make an uneducated guess, it's probably because at early ages our recall is vastly different compared to years later. Older memories aren't as easily accessible because they're on different neural pathways that haven't been used in a while. The earliest I can remember is probably riding my first bicycle at around age 7-8, and everything after that is a flurry of memories that I have no idea where they came from. Little bits of conversations or of rooms that used to be in the house before they were knocked down and rebuilt, etc.
mrmekon 13y ago
I see two other people commenting about framing memories based on moving at a young age. I have the same thing, and I wonder if moving at a young age correlates with higher childhood memories. I moved when I was 7, and it's a very distinct transition in the quality of my memories. I have tons of pre-move memories, including one confirmed by my parents as my 2nd birthday party, but they're primitive. No sense of time, just a jumble of memories that I can't place chronologically, and most are very brief moments. However, I remember the move and everything after it vividly and in chronological order. I would suppose that the move made me reminisce about my old home during the period when my childhood memories were fading, and saved many of them from being lost.
- seszett 13y ago
  I moved when I was 7 too, but I recall very little of my early memories. Actually, most of them seem to be memories of reading the kind of holidays logs that I used to draw and write with my mom, rather than memories of the events themselves. My wife only moved when she was older than that, and she has a lot more very early memories, so I'm not sure it is actually linked with moving.
- pygy_ 13y ago
  I moved when I was four, and I have a lot of memories of the old house, see my other post in the thread. How old were you when you acquired language (the ability to compose complete sentences)?
- dhughes 13y ago
  We moved when I was three (42 years ago) and I have some memories or what I think are memories of just vagueness of being in the living room looking at the sun shining through the thin white curtains. I remember the first year or two of school so that would be around age six. I remember suddenly realizing how to tell time, hands not digital, then looking up and the class was empty I was concentrating so hard I didn't realize everyone left. My next oldest and clearest memories are when we went on a trip to the US and Ontario when I was seven. I remember that year because it's when Elvis died and we got lost in Niagara Falls, NY in a rundown neighbourhood seeing a man in curlers and a kid hiding in a garbage can.
pubby 13y ago
I have tons of memories of age 2 and 3. My mother would often ask me, "What did you do today?" before I went to sleep, and so perhaps that is why I can recall so much. Interesting memories are: the day I saw light shine on dust particles, watching my sister miss her first bus, and eating lint off the floor.
deleted 13y ago
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Mz 13y ago
My earliest memory is of riding on my mother's lap in a tank. My older sister tells me I must have been less than 18 months old as this would have been a family day event at Fort Benning Georgia in the fall before we left for Germany. I was born in June, so this puts me around age 15 to 17 months. So the tank must have made a really big impression on me. While in therapy in my twenties, at some point, I spontaneously remembered my own birth. In my teens, I knew a woman who claimed to remember her own birth. I think she was born outside and there was snow on the ground, so perhaps the shock of it made an impression? My oldest son is able to access his early childhood memories. He is a visual and kinesthetic thinker and had trouble learning to talk. It took practice for him to be able to access them reliably and it involved him essentially translating them into English for the first time. I accidentally tripped across the fact that he had memories from infancy, which is a longish story that I don't have time to type out. Short version: I think there is still lots to be learned about how early memories are formed, accessed, etc.
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
>In contrast, children aged 8 and 9 recalled fewer than 40 per cent of the events they'd discussed at age 3, but those memories they did recall were more adult-like in their content. // If the memories recalled were more adult like at a later age that suggests children recalled things at a later age that they didn't (couldn't?) recall at an earlier age. This seems to me the most important insight in the article in respect of recall, that one would need greater understanding in order to recall details that one couldn't recall earlier. But mostly that recall is not [completely] limited by cognition. I'm guessing that the results didn't really show that though ... These sorts of articles just make me want to do research to rigorously address the obvious questions that don't appear to be addressed.
mamcx 13y ago
I wonder about other thing. I don't remember when (circa 10?), but I remember that some day I fully get a very sad tougth: I can't dream anymore as a child. I have the tendency to run the same kind of "history" in my dreams (obviously, awake!) before sleep then continue it later. I remember that I was playing a kind of war history or something (I forgot), and for the life of me, I can't do it like before. Now I only get stuck, and things are not fluid. Exist some info about this? When is not possible anymore to have (on command) the same vivid dream bending as a child?
V-2 13y ago
Like many people, I have a few early memories (3.5, 4 yrs old). But I can't stop wondering - do I really remember them, or do I only remember remembering them? I mean, is it a "direct" memory? Or is it an act of recollecting a previous recollection of it? Like, I remembered what I did at 4 when I was 6, fine. And then, if I happened to remember it still when I was 8, I actually remembered how I recalled the event being 6. This is (I believe) how distortions gradually crawl in. And I believe it persists in adult life as well; every refreshing of a memory is actually rewriting it, thus damaging it in a way
flatline 13y ago
My earliest memories are very clear, and I astounded my father when I recounted them as a teenager. I remember riding in the car by my dad's work at the University, and seeing owls on the facade of some of the buildings. We always stopped at one building in particular. Obviously some of the context for the memories is pieced together from when I was older -- e.g. The fact that I was riding in the car. I distinctly remember my dad pointing out the owls and saying the word for "owl" but being unable to remember/grok the word, for example. Anyway when I was a teenager we drove by the building we used to stop at and I told my dad about these early memories. It turns out that my mother had been seeing a therapist in that building on campus and once a week we would drive by to do a pickup and drop off. He was so shocked because they never discussed the matter with anyone, so he figured it was a real memory. According to my dad I was six months old.
michaelsbradley 13y ago
I have a large number of memories from age 2 and going forward. I can even remember the details of conversations I heard and the physical appearance, location and orientation of various objects that were in my environments, and can accurately recall the floor plans of places I lived in or visited. I can't recall a single thing prior to my second birthday, though. I'm age 37, presently. I've met people who, if the subject of very early memories came up in conversation, thought it was completely normal as they have similar ones. I've talked to other people, though, who insist that I can't possibly be telling the truth, perhaps because they can't even imagine remembering anything that far back.
legohead 13y ago
My 5 year old daughter has great memory and recollection of her entire childhood, reminding us of things we had forgotten about when she was 2, 3, etc. I thought it was remarkable, since I can't recall any of my own memories from younger than 10 years old.
thaumasiotes 13y ago
The opening to the article: > You could travel the world with an infant aged under 3 and it's almost guaranteed that when they get older they won't remember a single boat trip, plane ride or sunset. This is thanks to a phenomenon, known as childhood or infantile amnesia, that means most of us lose all our earliest autobiographical memories. It's a psychological conundrum because when they are 3 or younger, kids are able to discuss autobiographical events from their past. So it's not that memories from before age 3 never existed, it's that they are subsequently forgotten. This is obviously tremendously overblown. I could just as easily point out that people who are over 60 frequently have no memory of things (even significant things) that happened in their 20s. It's a "psychological conundrum" because people in their 20s are able to discuss current events! Memories, no matter when they originate from, fade with disuse. We have plenty of people, here and outside, who can attest to preserving early memories. Attacking them on the grounds that those memories could be reconstructions instead of strengthened "true" memories doesn't make any sense -- all memories are reconstructions; there is no possible way to distinguish between a "true memory" and a "reconstructed memory" at any age. All that said, the coolest experiment I know of in this area concerned visiting children still in the process of language acquisition with a "marvelous machine" designed to be highly entertaining and memorable. The experiment showed that though the children remembered the machine a (couple?) years later, when asked about their memories of it, they would describe it using only words they knew at the time of the visit.
- taeric 13y ago
  You can point that out, but is it true? The 20s seems to be an age that folks obsess over. Almost as bad as high school years.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    I can only recommend asking some old people about this. Your grandparents?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
kimonos 13y ago
I have little memories when I was below five and I can still remember how I felt during those times. Thanks for posting this! Great info!
trumbitta2 13y ago
My earliest memory it's me in the high chair (seggiolone, in italian) at age 1.5, doing that game of the plane which is a spoon with food. After that, all dark until age 2 with a lot - a lot - of kindergarden memories and so on till yesterday. Always thought it was the norm.
ds9 13y ago
Isn't there also a phenomenon of elderly people recovering childhood memories? I've always heard of this, and relatives in their 60s and 70s have told me of vivid memories of their early life. In the same age range, they have less memory of more recent events. It's as if the transition to childhood amnesia is reversed. If some of this is true, it should provide clues for researchers to pursue.
jhallenworld 13y ago
Heh, I think some significant memories can be retained. I know that my 4 year old son will forever remember what happens when you play with a loaded mouse trap.
shawndumas 13y ago
I have had a smell trigger a memory from my pre-seven-childhood. It was a smell that I hadn't smelt in the intervening years. It was upon meeting a distant relative that made a dish the first time I met them and then again when I met them in my mid-twenties. The second I smelled the smell of the dish I remembered an incident that I alone witnessed -- getting jalapeño oil in my eye when I was sneaking some of the dish.
deleted 13y ago
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zw123456 13y ago
Any Study that claims to know what someone remembers to thinks is inherently unreliable and has a potential for falsehood. Until mind reading is perfected, there is just know way to test what someone else is thinking for sure.

I remember several things from before I was 3 (and plenty more after that), but I'm always unsure if it is an actual memory, or a memory of a memory. I was a pretty introspective kid. I thought about my past and tried to recall my childhood even at the young age of 5. So perhaps my earliest memories are really just memories of being 6 or 7 and thinking back to when I was 2. Second hand memories, so to speak.

thirdsight 13y ago
Perhaps your memories are things your parents said when you were 7 that you did when you were two as well? That's how I figure it works in my head.
- drcube 13y ago
  I suspect many of my early memories come from my parents, but there are quite a few that they don't remember at all. Those are probably memories of memories.
sreevishwa 13y ago
That's pretty cool. A large majority (including me) are completely blank about anything before age 6 or so.
scrabble 13y ago
I have first hand memories from when I was 2. One of them was my mother getting in a car accident when she was bringing home McDonalds. I didn't really understand what a car accident was and was more concerned about the McDonalds. But we went out to pick her up and I understood better. (She was ok.) Another was me sitting in a high chair and looking up at a window. When I was 3 or 4 I broke my nose playing on a playground. I remember that well. And I remember things from kindergarten and a lot of things from grade one.
bane 13y ago
I agree. I definitely remember things from before 7. Not many things, mostly flashes of images and textures of objects. My earliest memory is a vague memory when I was in a crib. Based on certain specific details of that memory my parents place it to when I was around 2. I remember vague details of the homes we lived in after I was 3 or 4, but not the first home we lived in at all. Apparently I had a very bad fall at some point and put one of my new teeth through my lip and made a bloody mess everywhere. I have a scar there to this day, but don't remember the event in the least. I remember my mother teaching me the alphabet with a foam alphabet mat [1] and how to tie my shoes when I was probably 3 or 4. I also remember the moment my mother taught me the difference between how to say "three" and "tree" and permanently corrected what would have been a difficult speech impediment. I remember my Kindergarten teacher's name and my favorite toys from when I was 4 and 5. But the number and quantity of my childhood memories explodes after I entered 1st grade at 6. I feel like I remember more about 1st and 2nd grade then I do about most of the rest of my elementary and middle school education combined. Some really detailed events even. 1 - http://www.lcevafoam.com/img/Product/FM-910.jpg http://www.lcevafoam.com/img/Product/FM-910.jpg
_sabe_ 13y ago
I remember most of my childhood. I also know I have clear memories before the age of 3, because we moved to another country at that time, so it easy to distinguish the memories before/after the move. Talking to other people about this tough have made me realize it's quite unusual. I know tough that before age 25 all memories where real, but now getting older the memories are becoming memories of memories, and it saddens me a lot.

DanielStraight 13y ago

Does anyone know of other research about how to promote increased retention of early childhood memories?

fortepianissimo 13y ago
Near the end of the article: "Specifically, mothers who used more "deflections", such as "Tell me more" and "What happened?" tended to have children who subsequently recalled more details of their earlier memories."
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  It's interesting it specifies mothers - this suggests that there was a difference with the effect with fathers. Or that they only looked at children who never chat with their fathers?
  - Mz 13y ago
    Or (it suggests) that father's are frequently the primary breadwinner and typically have less to do with child rearing?
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      From the OP [Bauer and Larkina, the authors http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/bauer/lab/people.html http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/bauer/lab/people.h... incidentally] >Another important finding was that the style mothers used when chatting with their 3-year-olds was associated with the level of remembering by those children later on. Specifically, mothers who used more "deflections", such as "Tell me more" and "What happened?" tended to have children who subsequently recalled more details of their earlier memories. // It only mentions mothers. Suggesting either fathers were scientifically accounted for - the only way would appear to be by using subjects without contact with their father [or similar figure]. Or, that children chatting with fathers doesn't elicit the same response in recall and this was measured as insignificant and hence discounted. The assumption that [all] children only chat over memories with mothers would be a rather massive flaw in a scientific analysis. [Yes there are of course other influences, primarily siblings I imagine, that are also unaccounted for]. Even if we assume that father's are absent during the events that are later recalled then interactions with father's could be more important. In that assumed environment mothers [or other carers] being present don't have to have details recalled to them; but I'm heading off-piste there. The specification of it being "mothers" not "parents" or "primary care-givers" - assuming scientific rigour - must be important. A quick search [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28Bauer+PJ[Author]%29+AND+%28mother+OR+maternal%29 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28Bauer+PJ[Author]...] against Bauer PJ shows 10 papers on childhood memory which in abstract appear to all refer solely to maternal influence; though without reading the papers (I don't have access) or discussing them with the authors one can't really draw further conclusions. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28Bauer+PJ[Author]%29+AND+%28father+OR+paternal%29 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%28Bauer+PJ[Author]... returns no results. [Interesting, this relates http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/fivush/lab/FivushLabWebsite/GenderAM.html http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/fivush/lab/FivushL...]

ToastyMallows 13y ago

All I remember about when I was young is due to looking at photo/video of the event, and then later on, when I'm "remembering" the event, I'm really remembering the photo/video. I'd say I have close to 0 legitimate memories of when I was young. Anyone else?

Loughla 13y ago
Until now, I believed that remembering a lot from early childhood was normal. I have many very vivid memories from under the age of 5; playing hide and seek, playing with lego, playing outside and being around family members on our family farm, I even remember big family meals from when I was around 4. I honestly thought this was normal until about 10 minutes ago.
- ToastyMallows 13y ago
  See I remember nothing before, I dunno, lets be liberal and say 13 years old. I feel different than everyone else, like my uncle has a great memory of when he was young.
  - buckbova 13y ago
    I can barely remember high school or college. I can't name a professor from college right now, although I can picture a few faces. I played sports for all four years of high school but can't recall anything but a few flashes. I don't think this is completely normal, but why dwell on the past anyway. Try to live in the now.
    - cma 13y ago
      Just curious, did you play (american) football and suffer any concussions?
  - Cookingboy 13y ago
    You don't remember elementary school and middle school? May I ask how old you are now? I still have friends I occasionally talk to from elementary school, and I vividly remember the stuff I did back in kindergarten as well.

codva 13y ago

I remember my parents dropping me at the neighbors when they went to hospital to give birth to my brother. I was a month shy of 3. Then I have nothing until I'm about 5.

steeve 13y ago

I had meningitis when I was 2, and I clearly remember a flash of when I was in the hospital bed, with all the gear monitoring me, trying to reach out for my blanket. My mother confirmed my story when I was ~20. It's pretty vivid actually, and not only do I remember the "scene" but also how I felt and what I thought. I have a few others like that, but this is the most ancient.

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Morgawr 13y ago

I remember a few things that happened to me when I was 2 years old. Mostly some events when I used to play with my cat or with legos in my room. I'm fairly sure those aren't constructed memories, not sure why some specific memories have stuck with me compared to others from such an early age (they were nothing particular, really, no special events). The human brain is such a fascinating thing.

goatforce5 13y ago

My earliest (or one of the earliest) memories is of a guy in a mascot costume coming to our preschool to promote a bank. I think they gave us some money boxes, and I guess they were trying to teach us about the importance of saving money. I would have been 3 or 4 at the time. 35+ years on I can still vividly remember the mascot, which bank it was, etc. It saddens me that my earliest memory is of a form of advertising.

pavel_lishin 13y ago
I wonder, if there was a video available of this, how closely your memory would match the actual event.
yannk 13y ago
So... How good of a saver have you been since then?

mililani 13y ago

I have distinct memories of when I was 2-3 y.o. that have astounded my parents. I was raised in Korea till I was about 3, then we all flew to Hawaii to immigrate to the U.S. I remember the flight, I remember my life in Korea, I remember going to the public spa's with my dad, I remember feeling ashamed of my nudity in front of many older folks around me. I told all of this to my parents later in life, and they were amazed. I even distinctly remember the time when I thought I was lost, being scared, walking through a tunnel only to emerge to find a statue of some Korean soldiers. My parents found me and took a picture of me pointing at that statue. I asked my mom about that time, and I said, "How did I get lost? I was scared." My mom said that they were following me from afar, making sure I didn't see them, and they wanted to see how I would explore the world. I've told people about this many times. And, people just can't or won't believe me. A history professor told me that this is impossible, because children can't remember anything before the age of 3. He was adamant about it, and completely dismissive of my claims. I think these kinds of pseudo-scientific research (you know, taking polls and applying statistics) should be taken with a grain of salt. One should NOT draw definitive conclusions from them.

mathattack 13y ago
There are always outliers. You should feel blessed!
crimsonalucard 13y ago
You're not the only person. I also remember things from around age 2 to 3. It all gets really blurry before that. Most people I know don't remember anything before 5.
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jpeg_hero 13y ago
There was sort of research that showed that this happens more often in early immigration situations (ie person emigrates as a very young child and subsequently retains early childhood memories from their "home country") Fascinating

jayhuang 13y ago

I remember one event from back when I was a bit over 1. My mom took me to her friend's shop, they had 2 daughters and a chihuahua. One of the daughters (~5 years old) picked up the chihuahua and held it in front of my stroller, within reach. She urged me to pet it, and when I did, the dog bit the first joint of my left ring finger off. I remember that part, I remember crying, but I don't remember having it sewn back on. To this day, I'm irrationally horrified of tiny dogs (I like big ones as long as they don't bark and show teeth). Sidenote: Whoever sewed it back on didn't do a very good job; you can see it's slightly slanted and a bit rotated too. =( I'm thankful for getting it back though.

mathattack 13y ago

What about forgetting your 20s? I can barely remember what I used to eat before I learned how to cook. I assume that it was a lot of macaroni and cheese, pasta and mashed potatoes, but I can't really remember.

sejje 13y ago
It was pizza, man.
Paul_S 13y ago
You're not alone. It annoys me a bit when people reminisce about their childhood and say things like "do you remember when" because I don't remember any of mine. In fact I don't remember my teens and come to think of it my uni seems a bit foggy. Any memories from highschool and such I know for a fact are second hand so I suspect maybe some people don't realise this - I'm more willing to believe in how easily we make false memories. I remember things as told to me by others even if they told me about it long ago. Riddle me that. I don't have amnesia, learning difficulties etc. Maybe I should keep a diary but it's a bit late for that.
- gmaslov 13y ago
  Don't worry -- it just means your brain's eviction policy is well-tuned for immortality. ;)
  - Paul_S 13y ago
    I hope my brain is putting all those reclaimed neurons to good use then but it's probably just storing pins and passwords which I remember for decades after not needing them any more. Wish I could talk to the bit of the brain that decides what should be kept.
- mathattack 13y ago
  I have a friend in his 40s with razor sharp accurate childhood memory. I always assumed it was because he never got into drinking, even in undergrad.

jbverschoor 13y ago

I recall very very little specific memories before 12 even. I know flashes...

adinb 13y ago

Now they need to test for the type of memory recalled, is there a difference in emotionally laden memories vs non emotional 'moment' or experience based memories? And what is the recall on 'pure' emotional memories?(Where the memory is primarily about the emotion, not what was occuring at the time). This would be incredibly useful in counseling psychology (and possibly neuropsych), where emotional based memories can get corrupted or ingrained into a person's overall personality. (Think of getting burned by a stove becoming anything from a subconscious jerk away from a stove to full phobias).

vitd 13y ago

There's also parental amnesia where as soon as a person has a child, they completely forget what it was like to be a child and get very frustrated that their children aren't adults. I see it all the time in colleagues.

Shank 13y ago

If I had to make an uneducated guess, it's probably because at early ages our recall is vastly different compared to years later. Older memories aren't as easily accessible because they're on different neural pathways that haven't been used in a while. The earliest I can remember is probably riding my first bicycle at around age 7-8, and everything after that is a flurry of memories that I have no idea where they came from. Little bits of conversations or of rooms that used to be in the house before they were knocked down and rebuilt, etc.

mrmekon 13y ago

I see two other people commenting about framing memories based on moving at a young age. I have the same thing, and I wonder if moving at a young age correlates with higher childhood memories. I moved when I was 7, and it's a very distinct transition in the quality of my memories. I have tons of pre-move memories, including one confirmed by my parents as my 2nd birthday party, but they're primitive. No sense of time, just a jumble of memories that I can't place chronologically, and most are very brief moments. However, I remember the move and everything after it vividly and in chronological order. I would suppose that the move made me reminisce about my old home during the period when my childhood memories were fading, and saved many of them from being lost.

seszett 13y ago
I moved when I was 7 too, but I recall very little of my early memories. Actually, most of them seem to be memories of reading the kind of holidays logs that I used to draw and write with my mom, rather than memories of the events themselves. My wife only moved when she was older than that, and she has a lot more very early memories, so I'm not sure it is actually linked with moving.
pygy_ 13y ago
I moved when I was four, and I have a lot of memories of the old house, see my other post in the thread. How old were you when you acquired language (the ability to compose complete sentences)?
dhughes 13y ago
We moved when I was three (42 years ago) and I have some memories or what I think are memories of just vagueness of being in the living room looking at the sun shining through the thin white curtains. I remember the first year or two of school so that would be around age six. I remember suddenly realizing how to tell time, hands not digital, then looking up and the class was empty I was concentrating so hard I didn't realize everyone left. My next oldest and clearest memories are when we went on a trip to the US and Ontario when I was seven. I remember that year because it's when Elvis died and we got lost in Niagara Falls, NY in a rundown neighbourhood seeing a man in curlers and a kid hiding in a garbage can.

pubby 13y ago

I have tons of memories of age 2 and 3. My mother would often ask me, "What did you do today?" before I went to sleep, and so perhaps that is why I can recall so much. Interesting memories are: the day I saw light shine on dust particles, watching my sister miss her first bus, and eating lint off the floor.

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Mz 13y ago

My earliest memory is of riding on my mother's lap in a tank. My older sister tells me I must have been less than 18 months old as this would have been a family day event at Fort Benning Georgia in the fall before we left for Germany. I was born in June, so this puts me around age 15 to 17 months. So the tank must have made a really big impression on me. While in therapy in my twenties, at some point, I spontaneously remembered my own birth. In my teens, I knew a woman who claimed to remember her own birth. I think she was born outside and there was snow on the ground, so perhaps the shock of it made an impression? My oldest son is able to access his early childhood memories. He is a visual and kinesthetic thinker and had trouble learning to talk. It took practice for him to be able to access them reliably and it involved him essentially translating them into English for the first time. I accidentally tripped across the fact that he had memories from infancy, which is a longish story that I don't have time to type out. Short version: I think there is still lots to be learned about how early memories are formed, accessed, etc.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago

>In contrast, children aged 8 and 9 recalled fewer than 40 per cent of the events they'd discussed at age 3, but those memories they did recall were more adult-like in their content. // If the memories recalled were more adult like at a later age that suggests children recalled things at a later age that they didn't (couldn't?) recall at an earlier age. This seems to me the most important insight in the article in respect of recall, that one would need greater understanding in order to recall details that one couldn't recall earlier. But mostly that recall is not [completely] limited by cognition. I'm guessing that the results didn't really show that though ... These sorts of articles just make me want to do research to rigorously address the obvious questions that don't appear to be addressed.

mamcx 13y ago

I wonder about other thing. I don't remember when (circa 10?), but I remember that some day I fully get a very sad tougth: I can't dream anymore as a child. I have the tendency to run the same kind of "history" in my dreams (obviously, awake!) before sleep then continue it later. I remember that I was playing a kind of war history or something (I forgot), and for the life of me, I can't do it like before. Now I only get stuck, and things are not fluid. Exist some info about this? When is not possible anymore to have (on command) the same vivid dream bending as a child?

V-2 13y ago

Like many people, I have a few early memories (3.5, 4 yrs old). But I can't stop wondering - do I really remember them, or do I only remember remembering them? I mean, is it a "direct" memory? Or is it an act of recollecting a previous recollection of it? Like, I remembered what I did at 4 when I was 6, fine. And then, if I happened to remember it still when I was 8, I actually remembered how I recalled the event being 6. This is (I believe) how distortions gradually crawl in. And I believe it persists in adult life as well; every refreshing of a memory is actually rewriting it, thus damaging it in a way

flatline 13y ago

My earliest memories are very clear, and I astounded my father when I recounted them as a teenager. I remember riding in the car by my dad's work at the University, and seeing owls on the facade of some of the buildings. We always stopped at one building in particular. Obviously some of the context for the memories is pieced together from when I was older -- e.g. The fact that I was riding in the car. I distinctly remember my dad pointing out the owls and saying the word for "owl" but being unable to remember/grok the word, for example. Anyway when I was a teenager we drove by the building we used to stop at and I told my dad about these early memories. It turns out that my mother had been seeing a therapist in that building on campus and once a week we would drive by to do a pickup and drop off. He was so shocked because they never discussed the matter with anyone, so he figured it was a real memory. According to my dad I was six months old.

michaelsbradley 13y ago

I have a large number of memories from age 2 and going forward. I can even remember the details of conversations I heard and the physical appearance, location and orientation of various objects that were in my environments, and can accurately recall the floor plans of places I lived in or visited. I can't recall a single thing prior to my second birthday, though. I'm age 37, presently. I've met people who, if the subject of very early memories came up in conversation, thought it was completely normal as they have similar ones. I've talked to other people, though, who insist that I can't possibly be telling the truth, perhaps because they can't even imagine remembering anything that far back.

legohead 13y ago

My 5 year old daughter has great memory and recollection of her entire childhood, reminding us of things we had forgotten about when she was 2, 3, etc. I thought it was remarkable, since I can't recall any of my own memories from younger than 10 years old.

thaumasiotes 13y ago

The opening to the article: > You could travel the world with an infant aged under 3 and it's almost guaranteed that when they get older they won't remember a single boat trip, plane ride or sunset. This is thanks to a phenomenon, known as childhood or infantile amnesia, that means most of us lose all our earliest autobiographical memories. It's a psychological conundrum because when they are 3 or younger, kids are able to discuss autobiographical events from their past. So it's not that memories from before age 3 never existed, it's that they are subsequently forgotten. This is obviously tremendously overblown. I could just as easily point out that people who are over 60 frequently have no memory of things (even significant things) that happened in their 20s. It's a "psychological conundrum" because people in their 20s are able to discuss current events! Memories, no matter when they originate from, fade with disuse. We have plenty of people, here and outside, who can attest to preserving early memories. Attacking them on the grounds that those memories could be reconstructions instead of strengthened "true" memories doesn't make any sense -- all memories are reconstructions; there is no possible way to distinguish between a "true memory" and a "reconstructed memory" at any age. All that said, the coolest experiment I know of in this area concerned visiting children still in the process of language acquisition with a "marvelous machine" designed to be highly entertaining and memorable. The experiment showed that though the children remembered the machine a (couple?) years later, when asked about their memories of it, they would describe it using only words they knew at the time of the visit.

taeric 13y ago
You can point that out, but is it true? The 20s seems to be an age that folks obsess over. Almost as bad as high school years.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  I can only recommend asking some old people about this. Your grandparents?
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kimonos 13y ago

I have little memories when I was below five and I can still remember how I felt during those times. Thanks for posting this! Great info!

trumbitta2 13y ago

My earliest memory it's me in the high chair (seggiolone, in italian) at age 1.5, doing that game of the plane which is a spoon with food. After that, all dark until age 2 with a lot - a lot - of kindergarden memories and so on till yesterday. Always thought it was the norm.

ds9 13y ago

Isn't there also a phenomenon of elderly people recovering childhood memories? I've always heard of this, and relatives in their 60s and 70s have told me of vivid memories of their early life. In the same age range, they have less memory of more recent events. It's as if the transition to childhood amnesia is reversed. If some of this is true, it should provide clues for researchers to pursue.

jhallenworld 13y ago

Heh, I think some significant memories can be retained. I know that my 4 year old son will forever remember what happens when you play with a loaded mouse trap.

shawndumas 13y ago

I have had a smell trigger a memory from my pre-seven-childhood. It was a smell that I hadn't smelt in the intervening years. It was upon meeting a distant relative that made a dish the first time I met them and then again when I met them in my mid-twenties. The second I smelled the smell of the dish I remembered an incident that I alone witnessed -- getting jalapeño oil in my eye when I was sneaking some of the dish.

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zw123456 13y ago

Any Study that claims to know what someone remembers to thinks is inherently unreliable and has a potential for falsehood. Until mind reading is perfected, there is just know way to test what someone else is thinking for sure.