Remember, your earliest memory may just be down to imagination
Academics find that nearly 40 per cent of people can recall incidents that they cannot possibly have stored
YOUR earliest memory may be far from reliable, scientists have concluded, after finding nearly 40 per cent of people believe they can recall events that they cannot possibly have remembered.
Academics at City, University of London have carried out one of the largest surveys of early memories conducted and discovered a large number of people have a first memory that is fictional.
Current research suggests that memories cannot form before the age of three, but when 6,641 people were asked about their earliest memory, 38.6 per cent claimed to have memories from two or younger, with 893 people claiming memories from one or younger. Researchers found it was particularly prevalent among middle-aged people and older adults.
Prof Martin Conway, director of the Centre for Memory and Law at City, University of London and co-author of the paper, said: “Crucially, the person remembering them doesn’t know this is fictional.
“In fact, when people are told that their memories are false they often don’t believe it. When we looked through the responses we found that a lot of these first ‘memories’ were frequently related to infancy, and a typical example would be a memory based around a pram. For this person, this type of memory could have resulted from someone saying something like ‘mother had a large green pram’.
“The person then imagines what it would have looked like. Over time these fragments then become a memory and often the person will start to add things in such as a string of toys along the top.”
To investigate people’s first memories the researchers asked participants to detail their first memory along with their age at the time. In particular, they were told that the memory had to be one that they were sure they remembered.
It should not be based on, for example a family photograph, family story, or any source other than experience. From these descriptions the researchers then examined the content, language, nature and descriptive detail of respondents’ earliest memory descriptions.
As many of these memories dated before the age of two and younger, the authors suggested that these fictional memories are based on remembered fragments of early experience – such as a pram, family relationships and feeling sad – and some facts or knowledge about their own infancy or childhood that may have been derived from photographs or family conversations.
Dr Shazia Akhtar, first author and senior research associate at the University of Bradford, said: “We suggest that what a rememberer has in mind when recalling fictional improbably early memories is a mental representation consisting of remembered fragments of early experience and some facts or knowledge about their own childhood.”
“Additionally, further details may be non-consciously inferred or added – for example, that one was wearing a nappy when standing in the cot. Such episodic memory-like mental representations come, over time, to be collectively experienced when they come to mind and so for the individual they quite simply are ‘memories’.”
The research was published in the journal Psychological Science.
‘Over time, fragments then become a memory and the person will add things in along the top’