People make up their first memory
● Current research indicates earliest memories date from age of three
Two-fifths of people have a fictional first memory based on fragments of early experiences, psychologists have found.
Scientists questioned participants in a new survey that identified more than 2,000 individuals claiming to have memories from the age of two or younger.
They found that the memories were fictional patch works based on experiences combined with facts derived from photos.
A new survey has revealed that 40 per cent of people have an entirely fictional first memory including some who recall from an age so young it is impossible to remember.
Current research indicates that people’s earliest memories date from around three to three-and-a-half years of age.
The study found that 38.6 per cent of a survey of 6,641 people claimed to have memories from two or younger, with 893 individuals claiming memories from one or younger. This was particularly prevalent among middle-aged and other adults.
To investigate people’s first memories, the researchers from City, University of London, the University of Bradford and Nottingham Trent University, asked participants to detail their first memory along with their age at the time.
Participants were told that the memory itself had to be one that they were certain they remembered. It should not be based on, for example a family photograph, family story, or any source other than direct experience.
From these descriptions the researchers then examined the content, language, nature and descriptive detail of respondents’ earliest memory descriptions, and from these evaluated the likely reasons why people claim memories from an age that research indicates they cannot be formed.
As many of these memories dated before the age of two and younger, the authors suggest 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 which may have been derived from photographs or family conversations. As a result, what a rememberer has in mind when recalling these early memories is a mental representation consisting of remembered fragments of early experience and some facts or knowledge about their own childhood, instead of actual memories. The study is published in the journal Psychological Science.
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 an episodic-memory-like mental representation consisting of remembered fragments of early experience and some facts or knowledge about their own infancy/ childhood. Additionally, further details may be non-consciously inferred or added, eg that one was wearing nappy when standing in the cot.”