Adults’ reports of their earliest memories: Consistency in events, ages, and narrative characteristics over time

Abstract

Earliest memories have been of interest since the late 1800s, when it was first noted that most adults do not have memories from the first years of life (so-called childhood amnesia). Several characteristics of adults’ earliest memories have been investigated, including emotional content, the perspective from which they are recalled, and vividness. The focus of the present research was a feature of early memories heretofore relatively neglected in the literature, namely, their consistency. Adults reported their earliest memories 2 to 4 times over a 4-year period. Reports of earliest memories were highly consistent in the events identified as the bases for earliest memories, the reported age at the time of the event, and in terms of qualities of the narrative descriptions. These findings imply stability in the boundary that marks the offset of childhood amnesia, as well as in the beginning of a continuous sense of self over time.

Development of episodic and autobiographical memory: The importance of remembering forgetting

“…As illustrated in Table 1, Panel a, the average age of earliest memory for a specific past event among adults in Western cultures is age 3 to 4 years (see, for example, Wang, 2006, 2014, for discussions of cross-cultural differences in average age of earliest memory). Moreover, the average age of earliest memory is consistent whether the source of data is a survey, free recall (e.g., Bauer, Tasdemir-Ozdes, & Larkina, 2014; Waldfogel, 1948; Weigle & Bauer, 2000; West & Bauer, 1999), or response to a cue word prompt (e.g., Bauer & Larkina, 2014a; Rubin & Schulkind, 1997; though see Wang, Conway, & Hou, 2004, for evidence that repeated probes can produce earlier estimates).…”

“…The result is stabilization of the corpus of memories: memories that survived the “storm and stress” of their infancy and early childhood remain accessible to recollection. This helps to explain the stability of the corpus of earliest memories among adults (Bauer et al, 2014), and the absence of cohort effects even when comparing the age of earliest memory by 20-year-olds and 60- to 70-year-olds (Rubin & Schulkind, 1997). …”

“…These patterns stand in sharp contrast to those we have observed in research with adults. Specifically, over the same delay, the age of earliest memory reported by adults does not change, and more than 80% of them nominate the same event as their “earliest” memory (Bauer et al, 2014). The pattern among children is suggestive of a “moving target” of earliest memory.…”

“…The likely explanation for the greater stability of the corpus of early memories among adults (Bauer et al, 2014), relative to children (Peterson et al, 2011), is that among adults, the rate at which memories are forgotten slows over time. As described earlier, the results of retrospective studies in which adults are asked to provide memories in response to cue words ( dog, table, book ) indicate that the distribution of memories from ages 8 onward is well characterized by the power function (Crovitz & Schiffman, 1974; Rubin, 1982; Rubin et al, 1986).…”

Consistency and stability of narrative coherence: An examination of personal narrative as a domain of adult personality

“…To address this issue, narrative researchers have started to systematically study consistency, stability, and change in personal narratives in several ways: by examining (a) the selection or deselection of events/details included in repeated tellings of narratives (Bauer, Tasdemir-Ozdes, & Larkina, 2014;K€ ober & Habermas, 2017;Mackinnon, De Pasquale, & Pratt, 2016;McAdams et al, 2006;Strauman, 1996;Thorne, Cutting, & Skaw, 1998), (b) how the meaning or interpretation of events may change (Josselson, 2009), (c) the choice of central themes in the narrative (Dunlop, Guo, & McAdams, 2016;McAdams et al, 2006), and (d) the structure/organization of the narratives as an index of an individual's narrative style (McLean, Pasupathi, Greenhoot, & Fivush, 2017). While prior studies have shown somewhat modest stability in regard to selection of events (Bauer et al, 2014;K€ ober & Habermas, 2017;Mackinnon et al, 2016;McAdams et al, 2006;Strauman, 1996;Thorne et al, 1998), the meaning/interpretation of events (Josselson, 2000) and narrative themes (Dunlop et al, 2016;McAdams et al, 2006;Sengsavang, Pratt, Alisat, & Sadler, 2017) have shown relatively more stability. However, the consistency and stability of narrative organization, as indexed by narrative coherence, are largely unknown.…”