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.
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't really produce), I have no reason to believe your claims.
It'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're an exception to a well-studied and widely documented event.
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't be controversial. There were no polls involved, either.
It'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'll notice that even this article doesn't claim that all memory prior to age 7 is irretrievably erased, and it's fully possible you truly have the memories you have -- but it's nonetheless improbable, and it isn't wrong to disbelieve you.
> It seems to me that not believing you is the right thing to do.
I'm sorry, but you have your science backwards. You don't dismiss evidence because it doesn't fit your current hypothesis.
Most significantly though, you grossly misunderstand statistics/surveys if you think it's possible to extract definitive physiological truths out of a subjective "how do you feel about remembering X?" survey.
For what it's worth anecdotally, I also can access memories from when I was 3-4 years old, and I can easily prove they're not fabricated memories because the memories in particular were not retold, and in some cases took some effort to actually confirm when I was the only one remembering them (even parents forgot).
Usually the memories are misc. trivia -- e.g. the design of the wallpaper of a house I only lived in until I was 4, a certain set of kids' cups I only used until I was 6, etc. There is no way these are false memories, because nobody told such things to me. I also remember some of my thoughts as a very young child, which is interesting, because they're very different from adult thoughts (though obviously I can't really "confirm" this in the same way I can physical memories).
Anyone saying childhood amnesia occurs completely is completely misguided. Of course, I have "childhood amnesia" like everyone else in the sense that most of those memories I haven't accessed in a long time, and can't recall them instantly at will. But they're still there, and I can access them with meditation if I want.
> I'm sorry, but you have your science backwards. You don't dismiss evidence because it doesn't fit your current hypothesis.
It is you who are misunderstanding either science, or what Tedks is saying. Mililanis story is not evidence, it is an anecdote. Based on our understanding of the human mind, it is simply more likely that his/hers story is a false memory rather than a true memory from a young age. Obviously it could be a true memory, but it is unlikely.
On the topic of false memories: I actually have several memories from a young age that directly contradicts with each other. I remember longing for a specific Nintendo game. I also remember getting the game as a christmas gift, looking at the box thinking "this looks like crap, why did they buy this?".
I remember when I learned to walk (man, the chairs were as tall as me). I know the exact place were it happened. Actually, I could not walk but "run" a few steps before somebody had to grab me and prevent me from falling.
I also might remember having laid in a children's push chair but I am not 100% sure about this memory.
Here is a case, I left Poland when I was four. Went back in my twenties and met an old neighbor kid now all grown-up. There I saw a wall and I told him how I remembered I had eaten a bug there and grossed-out a bunch of the kids. He was astonished that I remembered it, he remembered it too cause he was in grade school at the time and it was really gross to him what I had done. I asked my family later and they had no idea I had done that.
It is very unlikely since I left the country. Possibly some family heard from a kid or parent of kid, but they would would have mentioned it to me when I was still four before I left. Maybe my parents heard, but neither of my parents knew about this when I asked later. So they might have forgotten and if they had said anything it would have been when I was still young. Also I did meet that same kid when I was in 5th grade. But by that age I think one of us would have remembered it that we had talked about it when I was in fifth grade that time we met in our twenties when I brought it up. My hunch is that there can be some strong memories remembered from youth, some people may have more, some less, even none.
tedks didn't talk about definitive truths. The word used was "likely". Very few adults have memories from before the age of 2 and a half, and most who report memories cannot distinguish between personal memories and knowledge of the event given after the fact. If mililani has memories from before 2 and a half, then they are quite likely to be false memories. The evidence here isn't being dismissed, it's just being evaluated.
In your case, having memories from 3-4 years is entirely possible. However, your own subjective experience isn't definitive proof either. How can you prove that "nobody told such things" to you?
"Children aged 5, 6, and 7 remembered 60% or more of the early-life events. In contrast, children aged 8 and 9 years remembered fewer than 40% of the early-life events".
It is wrong to disbelieve him without knowing the standard deviation of the results. 40% is an average! For all we know (I can't check, as I don't have access to the original paper), there could have been two kids who had 90% recall and eight kids who had less than 40% recall. Knowing the standard deviation (and the nature of the distribution of results, whether it's a bell curve or whatever), would allow us to determine the probability of somebody having 90% recall post-childhood amnesia. Even if that probability was only 1/100, considering more than 100 people frequent this site it's expected that a few of them would have said 90% recall.
Even if the deviation were zero, 40% recall (or 20%, or 2%) of early-life events is more than enough to remember one thing. It's very definitely wrong for someone to take the position attributed to the history professor, "that this is impossible, because children can't remember anything before the age of 3". To the contrary, we know that they can.
Seriously. It's pretty funny to see a community that normally goes straight for the jugular on dismissing personal experience in favor of demands for data completely abandon that when it's /their/ personal experience being questioned (and, in this case, it's one of the few that we actually have great science on).
It's pretty funny to see one person claim dominion and authority over another person's inner state. We have as much proof that his memories are false as he might that they are true. The only position one can rightfully claim in this situation is agnostic skepticism. There is no certainty that his memories are false.
After all, the primary form of evidence for any given memory is the verbal recounting of detailed information. Without language, there aren't many ways to externalize a memory. Whether one is describing the experience of a memory, or reciting a coached, scripted tale ...if all the facts are correct what hope is there of disproving a dyed-in-the-wool memory?
Case in point: The drunkest I ever got was during a drinking game in college. I was black-out drunk. My memories are truncated about halfway through act one, and the next thing I honestly remember is waking up to the stench of my own vomit covered bed in my dorm room, but such an adventure it was for my roommates, and such a bardic tale it was for them to recount, over and over again, ad nauseum, that now, I too, can recite the tale, moment by moment from when I blacked out until I woke up. But, to the outsider, my recall seems accurate, and is vigorously affirmed by my roommates, and based on my ability to tell the story, a listener has no honest means of determining whether I was too drunk to remember or not.
So, while I buy into the mechanisms for how OP's claims to memories could be false in that he is perhaps only remembering the plot of the story, and not the experience itself, I'm still open to believing OP's claim to certain vivid memories.
I don't think childhood amnesia is a bottomless black pit from which nothing ever returns. Very obviously, certain aspects of learning must survive, and I think the keystones of our emotional development are indelible. Early traumatic experiences stay with people for very long periods of time. Being bullied, humiliation, loss of a pet. Those are foundational learning experiences. The detail of the bulk of our day-to-day experiences may get lost, but set pieces, scenes that perfectly encapsulate a profound learning experience are different from the tangential recall of banal routine. I think animals are wired to retain certain types of experiences, even from very young ages.
The phenomenon of memory is not necessarily constrained by hard statistical numbers. At least that is my opinion.
I'd offer up similar evidence of my own experiences, although I'm sure they'd be readily dismissed as subjective and unsubstantiated.
> It's pretty funny to see one person claim dominion and authority over another person's inner state.
Well, this is exactly my point -- that this happens regularly, and isn't even commented upon, in many posts on HN when the inner state is, to take an example, a woman discussing her feelings of exclusion or a racial/social minority discussion their feelings of oppression. They're regularly dismissed as being "too sensitive" or having "misinterpreted the situation". But in this post particularly, the vast majority of responses are people who are directly contradicting the (controlled experimental) evidence, and there's very little pushback from the community at large.
In a perfect world, I'd expect each and every person who responded in a noncritical way to this post to respond similarly to future posts (if they're still active on HN) in which they're not the discouraged party. But... I think we all know the odds of that happening.
>Well, this is exactly my point -- that this happens regularly, and isn't even commented upon, in many posts on HN when the inner state is, to take an example, a woman discussing her feelings of exclusion or a racial/social minority discussion their feelings of oppression. They're regularly dismissed as being "too sensitive" or having "misinterpreted the situation". But in this post particularly, the vast majority of responses are people who are directly contradicting the (controlled experimental) evidence, and there's very little pushback from the community at large.
I hadn't even noticed this irony! Thanks for pointing it out. It's pretty hilarious.
"We have as much proof that his memories are false as he might that they are true."
This isn't really how evaluating evidence works is it? Suppose I told you that I have a magic flying carpet but I am unable to let you see ever it. You have as much evidence that I am lying as that I am telling the truth. It is still very likely that I am lying, because of all the other data you have available on the plausibility of magic flying carpets.
> it's nonetheless improbable, and it isn't wrong to disbelieve you.
Is this the right assumption about the meaning of "improbable" in the context of this data and category of studies? One way we could interpret improbable is the way David Hume does in the "Of miracles" chapter of his 1748 treatise: that is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely not the case. The other way would be that the parent post either himself, or the memory to which he is referring is simply an outlier -- that is, a lottery winner of people or memories simply not clustered around the mean of being lost to this amnesia phenomenon.
In the case of the former, I would totally agree with the conclusions of your comment and the professor cited in the parent. In the case of the latter I think it merely points out that we're applying the wrong kind of skepticism over these claims. Somebody always, eventually wins the lottery. I think this is a valid distinction that can be made, and if so, doesn't hold us to discounting anecdotes as summarily false.
> It'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're an exception to a well-studied and widely documented event.
People want to feel that they are special, together with the fact that the other people involved, the parents, have probably forgotten talking about it as well, since they forgot about the even happening.
Fair enough. However, I believe my circumstances are starkly different. My parents are native Koreans, and they couldn't speak English worth a damn until I was much older. I really can't see how they could convey these stories to me at such a young age when I couldn't even understand them most of the time.
At best you could say that such memories would not be normal, though, right? Just as the fact that the two times I was hypnotized I did not suffer post-hypnotic amnesia would also not be the normal experience, right?
It seems to my mind that your disbelief should be qualified with an understanding of how common the exceptions are. When you assume that everyone is the same, you are going to miss out on differences.
My earliest memory was, I think, from when I was 1. I think we were moving from California to Michigan and I remember looking out the window and seeing a bank of grass. However, I could be wrong. It could have been later.
What I can tell you though for certain is that I have precise, detailed memories of things from when I was 2 to 3 that are not details that people describe. I can tell you most of the details of the apartment we lived in there, including the flooring, how my mother cooked dinner, what she often cooked, and so forth (I don't know the name of what she cooked. All I know is it included both lamb and eggplant and was cooked on a hotplate).
I could probably draw for you the pattern on the linoleum in the bathroom.
What's really funny is that the level of detail I remember about the living spaces I lived after the age of about 4 drops off considerably. But then I won't claim to be normal in this regard. The next house we lived in, I remember mostly the yard. The house after that I hardly remember at all. The house after that we lived in for seven years, but I still remember the yard and to a less extent than the others.
Now I remember some things from those early years my parents don't, for example what motivated some of my temper tantrums at the age of about 2 (pinkeye medication meant I couldn't see the all-important train passing behind the house). And I couldn't tell you anything beyond probably what I could see from indoors. But I can describe in near perfect detail large parts of the apartment, and those details are not really ones people talk about, at least in my family.
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'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.
Touching tale, here's where it gets interesting. I remember that, but later (over 30 years later) I discussed this with my parents. Turns out, I'd been left at a neighbor's house while my dad went to fetch her home. They got me afterward. I wasn't THERE to see her walk in.
I'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'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 "memory".
So perhaps that is the source of your history professor'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.
To be fair, your memory could be only slightly altered over time -- e.g., your dad fetched you home from the neighbors, told you to wait in the living room, and brought your mother (and baby down) from upstairs, so only the bit about the door was off. It's also possible that your parents' memory is off. :)
Not that I'm disagreeing with your main points -- memories are subject to a strange game of telephone over the years. My own early childhood memories (all of childhood, really, and much of post-childhood as well) are pretty limited; I was under general anesthesia more than most kids (more than 5 times; less than 50; I can't remember), which apparently messes with memory.
By contrast my wife has abundant and clear memories of much of her life, including early childhood; she's a writer. I'm sure her memories are reworked as much as anyone's, and inaccuracies are introduced; but the raw material is so obviously greater than what I have in my own head.
> To be fair, your memory could be only slightly altered over time [...] It's also possible that your parents' memory is off.
Absolutely. In fact, I find it extremely interesting, in a philosophical sense, the implication that perhaps nothing we remember can be considered reliable.
But in this case 3 years old is quite young for an early memory and it is clear from other evidence that I have particularly poor memory for events (late age for most childhood memories, poor memories of events and conversations even today). So the most likely explanation is that my own memory is fabricated. Interestingly, that doesn't change the fact that I can still remember it!
> my wife has abundant and clear memories of much of her life [...] she's a writer
It is certainly a thing which varies strongly in different people. I am reminded of an author (I think it was Beaverly Cleary) being interviewed and mentioning that she had strong memories of her early childhood -- and that this was the source of much of her excellent writing.
> she wrote a piece about navigating the unreliability of memory
I read it. Wow... she's a great writer! Please pass on that I said so. I thought the pacing of that piece and the way it draws the reader in at the beginning were really wonderful. It is so difficult to write about racial issues in a way that is open to and accessible to readers from all races, but this piece managed that.
How old were you when you acquired language (the ability to compose complete sentences)?
My first memories date back to that time, when I was 18 months old.
One of the first things I told my parents was that I didn't need diapers anymore. It was on the back seat of their car, on the passenger side (I remember the place, my mother was actually changing me after a long trip).
It was on the road to holidays in Spain, and I have distinct memories of the topography of the apartment, the beach and the bay, and their relative positions. I also remember going out for a walk alone with my dad, between the white villas.
We moved when I was four, and I also have several memories of the old house, including the full topography including furniture, a dark blue beach balloon, a harmless fall from the top of the staircase with a spherical vacuum cleaner, unrolling the toilet paper from the first floor to the ground floor because there wasn't any TP below... having the red toy car I had received as a reward for stopping sucking my thumb confiscated for relapsing.
I also remember the feeling of my long wet hairs on my back when I was lying on the chest in the bathtub, with the head raised. I only had long hairs between 2 and 3.
I was older. I distinctly remember struggling with English when we first moved to Hawaii. I could NOT talk to the other kids. I also remember my older cousins catching on much more quickly than me. I think I finally grasped English when I was about 4, when I started going to kindergarten.
I believe you. One of our friends has a kid who is, I think, really smart. He's only a toddler (2 y.o.), but he is really talkative and has a good vocabulary. He could start talking before 2. I wouldn't be surprised if he has some recall of his toddler years. I will have to keep abreast of this as time goes by.
> "It was on the road to holidays in Spain, and I have distinct memories of the topography of the apartment, the beach and the bay, and their relative positions. I also remember going out for a walk alone with my dad, between the white villas."
That's funny. My eariest memories are of the topography of the apartment we were living at the time. I am not sure I could tell you what the parking lot looked like or how the apartments were around it, but I coudl tell you that we were on the second floor, that it had a brick facade, the sort of flooring used in every room, the color of the walls, and the all-important detail for a 2 year old: there was a TRAIN that ran by out back every day).
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")
I moved countries at ages 3, 4, 5, and 6. Knowing that I can pin any image, sensation, or similar to a certain age really helps me identify the age I was at for those memories, where I'd probably just assume I'd been older, if that makes sense? If it happened in Bangkok, I was 3 or younger, the UK, 3-4, Malawai, 4-5 or Barbados, over 6. This makes it much much easier to know which memories I have from when I was < 3 (very few, but some), and 3-4.
We didn't change countries but when I was one my parents moved from California to Lansing Michigan, then when I was three, to Saginaw, then when I was 5 to Battle Creek, then when I was 8 to Richfield, Utah.
I don't remember California at all. I remember the Michigan cities all very distinctly. So I believe that research.
I believe you -- I also have 2-3 y.o memories. But most people I know don't, so I can understand their skepticism. I've encountered one or two young children (age 2-3) who seem to remember their own births, but those memories definitely fade -- they don't recall it a few years later. They're also hard to authenticate, since the distinction between reality and imagination is sometimes approximate at that age :)
I still hang out with many people I've known since I was 2/3. Seeing them basically every day at school for ~11 years helped keep those memories of when we were 2/3 fresh, I think. Seeing them now again The result is similar - I have very good memories of being 2-6, but for almost the opposite reason as you it seems. My childhood was incredibly continuous and yours was discontinuous. Maybe we're both flukes...
I have several memories from before 3. The earliest I can pin down is my second birthday. I can distinctly remember the cake (Thunderbird 2) and running around, looking at the bon fire in our garden.
The only very early memory that I can firmly date is visiting my mother in the hospital before or shortly after my brothers (twins) were born. That was when I was about 2.5 years old, judging by our ages/birthdays.
Other than that, I've got nearly nothing. No solid memories that aren't possibly just reconstructions from photographs or stories until I was about 10 or 11.
I was 2.5 years old when my brother was born and I remember a lot about that night - being at home with my nan, what our curtains were like, how the room was laid out. What the hospital was like, the toy I was given, the fruit jellies that someone gave my mum. Everyone's always been surprised that I remember so much.
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.
I've also retained numerous memories of significant events from early ages. But not the day-to-day events.
Were you an introspective child? Because I used to run back over my memories as I grew up, thinking through them in chronological order, just to test how much I could remember. That is probably what let them sink in and last though to my older age.
I also find it interesting that I recall my memory being better. When I was around 12, I remember being able to recall most of my childhood, but now it is just significant or emotional moments.
Same here. I consciously reinforced memories from earlier childhood, but I know I've lost many of them. My earliest, from before 3, are still there in sketchy form. There are no photos, just memories of playing alone and questions I asked my Mom which she doesn't remember, so I'm pretty sure they're genuine.
I wonder if solitude and quiet play are conducive to preserving memories. My children have much more stimulating, entertained lives than I had -- I had no computer, very little TV until age 10 or so. They seem more mature than I was, socially and cosmopolitanly, but also less introspective and thoughtful.
Yes, most definitely introspective. In fact, I used to think about life and death all the time as a kid. And, it would get me depressed thinking that my mom would someday be dead, and that I would be dead too. I realized at a very young age that if I had the decision to be born, I would haven't have been. Even till this day, I often think I would rather not have been born. But, before anyone intervenes, I'm not suicidal. Just not into the whole circle of life thing.
i remember being on a flight from asia when i was 18 months old. i ate jello for the first time on that flight, and remember the experience. it was green and cold.
i've met some people have earlier memories that that. any 'limit' to memories sounds like pure bullshit to me.
Definitely -- I remember being in the crib, the toys I had in my nursery, and even the color of the lamp! (All verified later by asking my parents, all from before I was a year old)
All my memories that took place before the age of three are very hazy. Almost like a few snapshots of a moment. However, I can recall the way I felt during the memories very well.
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.