<story><title>Childhood amnesia kicks in around age 7</title><url>http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/01/childhood-amnesia-kicks-in-around-age-7.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mililani</author><text>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&amp;#x27;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, &amp;quot;How did I get lost?  I was scared.&amp;quot;  My mom said that they were following me from afar, making sure I didn&amp;#x27;t see them, and they wanted to see how I would explore the world.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve told people about this many times.  And, people just can&amp;#x27;t or won&amp;#x27;t believe me.  A history professor told me that this is impossible, because children can&amp;#x27;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tedks</author><text>&amp;gt;And, people just can&amp;#x27;t or won&amp;#x27;t believe me.&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that not believing you is the right thing to do. Childhood amnesia is well-studied; false memories are equally well-studied and are easily formed; since the former is more probable than an exception to the latter, unless you have additional evidence (which you can&amp;#x27;t really produce), I have no reason to believe your claims.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s more probable that you reconstructed those memories from stories told by other people, even if you forgot hearing those stories before remembering the event, than that you&amp;#x27;re an exception to a well-studied and widely documented event.&lt;p&gt;Cognitive psychology is hardly psuedo-science, and in this instance, there were no polls conducted. This was a longitudinal study that took considerable resources to conduct and involved a seemingly well-designed experimental test. The findings are entirely in line with what the rest of the data in the field suggests, so it shouldn&amp;#x27;t be controversial. There were no polls involved, either.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s frustrating to believe something that contradicts most available evidence, and it must be even more frustrating to not have a way to demonstrate the truth of such a belief. You&amp;#x27;ll notice that even this article doesn&amp;#x27;t claim that all memory prior to age 7 is irretrievably erased, and it&amp;#x27;s fully possible you truly have the memories you have -- but it&amp;#x27;s nonetheless improbable, and it isn&amp;#x27;t wrong to disbelieve you.</text></comment>
<story><title>Childhood amnesia kicks in around age 7</title><url>http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/01/childhood-amnesia-kicks-in-around-age-7.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mililani</author><text>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&amp;#x27;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, &amp;quot;How did I get lost?  I was scared.&amp;quot;  My mom said that they were following me from afar, making sure I didn&amp;#x27;t see them, and they wanted to see how I would explore the world.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve told people about this many times.  And, people just can&amp;#x27;t or won&amp;#x27;t believe me.  A history professor told me that this is impossible, because children can&amp;#x27;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mcherm</author><text>I have rather poor childhood memories - I remember only a  very few scattered scenes before about age 13. But I know exactly what my earliest memory was, probably because it was such a significant occasion. I was 3 years old and I remember being in the house and watching my mom come home. She&amp;#x27;d been gone for a day or so and when she came back she had this new baby with her (my brother). I specifically remember her walking into the house: I was behind the sofa peering up at her as she walked in the door, and she had the baby. I was mostly just glad to have my mom back.&lt;p&gt;Touching tale, here&amp;#x27;s where it gets interesting. I remember that, but later (over 30 years later) I discussed this with my parents. Turns out, I&amp;#x27;d been left at a neighbor&amp;#x27;s house while my dad went to fetch her home. They got me afterward. I wasn&amp;#x27;t THERE to see her walk in.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not trying to suggest that your memories are not real. But memory is a strange thing. They do not work like photographs or audio recordings; instead memories are laid down in nerve connections and are refreshed by running through them again. It&amp;#x27;s sort of like having VHS tapes that are brittle: you keep the data by copying them over and over again. Having a photograph to refer to helps to cement it; having a story that goes with it helps you to repeat and thus remember it, and this can happen regardless (as in my case) of whether there was an accurate original &amp;quot;memory&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;So perhaps that is the source of your history professor&amp;#x27;s skepticism. Now, he is simply flat-out wrong to dismiss your claims out-of-hand. There is significant individual variation in early memories -- and there ARE some people who have memories from age 2 or 3. But the nature of memory itself is such that such having an early memory like that may not mean exactly what you think it means.</text></comment>