Childhood amnesia and early memories in children and adults

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Objectives: The goal of this research program is to understand how children remember the events of their lives. For the next 5 years our objectives focus on childhood amnesia, defined as the inability to recall one's early life. It is commonly explored by asking people to describe their first memory. We propose to study childhood amnesia in both children and adults. Age comparisons allow us to explore differences across age as well as developmental trajectories. Various studies will explore: (a) The malleability of earliest memory. Can we experimentally intervene to help children recall even earlier memories? (b) How can we encourage access to both earlier first memories and more numerous memories from one's very early years, in both children and adults? (c) What variables affect accuracy of dating those memories and how might one be able to improve accuracy? Dating accuracy is currently an important forensic issue. (d) What strategies are used to retrieve one's earliest memories? Little is currently known about this. Can strategies be influenced to improve dating accuracy? (e) How credible are early memories of abuse or other forensic events? And are such memories perceived as credible by others? These are important forensic issues faced by police and courts. Scientific Approach: All studies involve interviews of individuals. Some are one-on-one in-person interviews, other interviews will be conducted via remote platforms like zoom, and others through on-line questionnaires. Participants will include children of various ages as well as adults. Parents of many interviewees will verify their children's (including adult offspring) memories. Novelty/Expected Significance: The proposed set of studies explores novel aspects of childhood amnesia and can provide developmental guidance in understanding the phenomenon because of the inclusion of both children and adults. The question of "when do personal memories start" has been an often-asked question in the childhood amnesia literature, and answers to this question have influenced theory construction about early memory. Most researchers and virtually all relevant textbooks claim that the average age of earliest memory is about 3½ years, but recent work in my lab has cast considerable doubt on this. Rather, we think that memories are earlier and more numerous than commonly believed, and that accessing them is shaped by various factors. The proposed research has important forensic implications. It is not unusual for children and adults to come forward many years after an event with assertions of experiencing abuse. Important questions facing police and courts revolve around whether such memories are credible or fictional. If it can be shown that many people are indeed able to accurately recall events from age 2, and that better interviewing techniques can help people access these very early memories, this casts doubt on the often wholesale dismissal of remembered events that date from this early