Fictional First Memories

Psychological Science
Shazia AkhtarMartin A Conway

Abstract

In a large-scale survey, 6,641 respondents provided descriptions of their first memory and their age when they encoded that memory, and they completed various memory judgments and ratings. In good agreement with many other studies, where mean age at encoding of earliest memories is usually found to fall somewhere in the first half of the 3rd year of life, the mean age at encoding here was 3.2 years. The established view is that the distribution around mean age at encoding is truncated, with very few or no memories dating to the preverbal period, that is, below about 2 years of age. However, we found that 2,487 first memories (nearly 40% of the entire sample) dated to an age at encoding of 2 years and younger, with 893 dating to 1 year and younger. We discuss how such improbable, fictional first memories could have arisen and contrast them with more probable first memories, those with an age at encoding of 3 years and older.

References

Jan 1, 1989·Advances in Child Development and Behavior·D B Pillemer, S H White
Jun 1, 1993·Journal of Experimental Psychology. General·J A Usher, U Neisser
Jun 1, 1993·Journal of Experimental Psychology. General·E F Loftus
May 2, 2000·Psychological Review·M A Conway, C W Pleydell-Pearce
Aug 10, 2000·Memory·D C Rubin
Sep 16, 2000·Psychological Bulletin·T Habermas, S Bluck
Mar 7, 2001·Psychological Science·D BruceK Phillips-Grant
May 15, 2002·Psychological Science·Gabrielle Simcock, Harlene Hayne
Sep 13, 2011·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Daniel L SchacterPeggy L St Jacques
Nov 13, 2013·The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology : QJEP·Christine WellsMartin A Conway
Aug 1, 2015·Memory·Mark L HoweLinden J Ball

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Citations

Nov 24, 2019·Journal of Personality·Cagla Aydin, Martin A Conway
May 8, 2021·Memory·Carole Peterson
May 23, 2021·Current Biology : CB·Cameron T EllisNicholas B Turk-Browne
Oct 29, 2021·Scandinavian Journal of Psychology·Michal PieniakAnna Oleszkiewicz
Dec 12, 2021·British Journal of Psychology·Sylvia K Harmon-Jones, Rick Richardson

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