The Truth of Fictional First Memory

In a survey conducted by the researchers of people’s first memory, it was revealed that nearly 40 per cent of people had a first memory which is fictional. As per the research, it was found that people’s very first memory dates from around 3 to 3.5 years of age.

As per the study conducted by the researchers at City, University of London, the University of Bradford and Nottingham Trent University it was found that 38.6 per cent of a survey of 6,641 people claimed to have memories from two or younger, with 893 people claiming memories from one or younger. It has been the most common amongst the middle aged and older adults. During this survey, the researchers gathered some participants who were people of different ages. These participants were asked to narrate their first memory along with their age at that time. The participants were strictly told to narrate only those stories that they were sure that they remembered on their own and not because of some family photograph or family story or any sort of direct experience. The researchers then closely examined the content, language, nature and description of the respondent’s earliest memories and made efforts in order to calculate that why and how people are able to form memories at an age when research claims that memories cannot be formed. The researchers inferred that all memories that people claim to have formed before the age of 2 years are those which are more based upon their early experiences in life and those facts that they have been told about by their parents, relatives or siblings. These are certainly based upon the narrations of their grannies and grandmothers. It won’t be wrong to state that what one claims to remember are actually fragmented experiences of childhood and not real memories. Time and again when an individual recollects these instances, he relates them to be memories with the content strongly tied to a particular time. It has been seen that fictional memories are more common among middle aged people and older adults. About 4 in 10 people have reported to develop fictional memories for infancy. It has been affirmed by Professor Martin Conway, Director Centre for Memory and Law at City, University of London also that when people were asked to narrate childhood instances, all that they could put forward was memories of early infancy. The most crucial aspect of this is that people often refuse to believe that their memories are nothing but a piece of fiction. They claim these to be true. Indeed, real adult like memories are only formed by a person after the age of five or six years and not before.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180717194600.htm