Almost 40 percent of people have likely fictional first memories from their childhoods, according to new research.
In the study, published in Psychological Science, researchers at City University of London, the University of Bradford, and Nottingham Trent University conducted one of the largest surveys to date — 6,641 individuals — of people’s first memories and found 38.6 percent claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger.
This was especially true among those who were middle-aged or older.
However, the researchers believe these aren't actual retained memories, but rather are based upon family lore or photographs taken during the time, according to Newsweek.
This supports the long-held and yet-to-be-disproven belief that a person’s memory only dates back to age 3 to 3-1/2 years. An individual’s inability to recall memories before that age is referred to as “childhood amnesia.”
“When we looked through the responses from participants, we found that a lot of these first ‘memories’ were frequently related to infancy, and a typical example would be a memory based around a pram [stroller],” Martin Conway, one of the study's co-authors, said in a statement, Newsweek reported.
“For this person, this type of memory could have resulted from someone saying something like ‘Mother had a large green pram.’ The person then imagines what it would have looked like,” he continued. “Over time, these fragments then become a memory, and often the person will start to add things in, such as a string of toys along the top.”
As the person continues to re-imagine this fictional first memory, it gets reinforced to the point where it’s truth — at least to him — and he’ll correct anyone who contradicts him.
“In fact, when people are told that their memories are false, they often don’t believe it,” Conway said, Newsweek reported. “This is partly due to the fact that the systems that allow us to remember things are very complex, and it’s not until we’re 5 or 6 that we form adultlike memories due to the way that the brain develops and due to our maturing understanding of the world.”
Dr. Shazia Akhtar, first author and Senior Research Associate at the University of Bradford said the “false memories” can be based on a number of things.
"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,” she said, Science Daily reported.
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