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What's Your Earliest Memory?
spazoid12 writes "I've been curious lately about memory. For example, why is it that my earliest memory is from about 7 years of age? (I'm mid-30's now) Most people I know remember much further back. How far back can a person remember? Is there a theoretical limit? What are the requirements for acquiring memories? I've read that oxygen is one; as in actual breathed-in stuff. This is supposed to explain why you can't remember anything from within the womb. That seems silly to me. My own theory (with nothing to back it up) is that language is required. We spoke mostly Brasilian Portuguese and some Russian in the home up until I was about 5 or 6. We moved to Brasil for a year when I was 8 and I barely remember anything from that trip. I really don't know either language today-- could this explain why I have no memories of those years? What if I re-learned those languages now, 30 years later? Would memories flood back?"
For example, why is it that my earliest memory is from about 7 years of age? (I'm mid-30's now) Most people I know remember much further back.
Almost everyone I know has what strike me as overly clear memories from when they were extremely young.. 2, 3 years of age. Often, I've found that when you talk to their parents or other older relatives, the story you get from them is almost word-for-word what the child 'remembers'. My guess is these are things that the child has heard many, many times in his/her life, and eventually forms a 'memory' around it. Sort of how some people hear a story about something happening and incorporate that into their stock of things they believe happened to them.
What we hear from others influences our own memories highly, it's amazing how many people can recall group events years later, even if some of them weren't actually present for something that occurred. Also, a child's sense of time is really out of whack - remember how long summer seemed to be? Things that happen when you're 5 or 6 can seem to have happened when you were much younger.
Memory is a very tricky, changing thing, even for recent events in fully cognizent adults. I don't find it surprising at all that childhood memories aren't terribly reliable nor consistent.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
My 2c worth:
While you may remember down to age 2, its pretty hard to order things chronologically until much late r in life.
While some people may (or certainly say they can) remember down to childbirth, the fact that so many jewish men don't remember circumcision says to me that most people don't remember things at birth, even if painful or traumatic - remembering that circumcision has been going alot longer than anaesthesia.
In truth, the brain really isn't that functional at that age. Doesn't mean that it isn't working, just that its not functioning as a cohesive organ.
Also, as an aside voluntary recall of past events probably requires some verbal skills to associate with those events. Memories from ages before people can speak meaningfully (ie, age less than two) are going to be hard to spontaneously recall - "I'm thinking back to living in my first house" - because to initiate this sort of recollection is a verbal/logic driven action. If you have a memory going back before you could speak much won't have any words associated with it. You might recall them by association with non verbal events, however.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
The most common explanation for early "memories" (like pre-3 years old) is that you had heard the story when you were old enough to remember, then incorporated that into your long term memory. You eventually think you remember it because it's been told to you before, and you come up with your own visual for the story. It's not really a memory of the event, it's a memory of your imagination when you heard about the event.
That's the problem with "memory" - it's subject to revision and addition along the way, just like "history"...
(Not that I'm saying it's this bad, but) this isn't too far off from people who are SURE they can remember being abducted by aliens... deja vu also seems VERY real to people. Also, things like early family photos, etc. that you have seen many times over the years can make you feel like you actually *remember* when it was taken.
I'm sure it seems real, but your claim that you knew someone's name from before you were born (let's not get into the development of a concept of self vs other, let alone sister vs. mother in the PREnatal brain...) pretty much discredits this completely. Unless you were in there a good year and a half there is no way your brain is going to be developed enough to understand and recognize a name (heh, even if you were an adult have you ever TRIED to hear someone speaking from inside the uterus? I can't even hear people when I'm underwater in a swimming pool...)
Basically, if you were to say "I remember my birth! It was dark and warm, then light and loud and cold" then I'd only be SKEPTICAL... anything else, and you're just kidding yourself. Not that there is anything wrong with that, really, it just doesn't add much to a scientific discussion.
Egads, this is a poorly informed post.
Peripheral myelin hits its peak around a year of age - it basically allows walking because feedback from the legs gets in sync with the motor commands.
But various parts of the brain continue to change myelin status through the first 6-7 years at least.
However, the lack of myelin doesn't imply the lack of coherent cerebral activity (although it certainly doesn't help).
Check any of the recent research on hypnosis, and you'll find that there is no way whatsoever to tell the difference between a recovered memory and an implanted memory produced while under hypnosis. While you are in a state of hypnosis, you are in a state where you have two things working against you - one, you are open to suggestion, and two, the mechanism for tagging the difference between things you remember and things you imagined stops working properly.
For a quick read-up, check this link from the False Memory Syndrome Foundation's website.
A quick read of almost any post-mortem on the whole "multiple personality disorder" craze of several years ago should also raise your skepticism. My roommate's own mother had her shrink succeed in giving her a case of dissociative identity disorder that she did not have before she started seeing this 'doctor' through a combination of hypnosis and directed questioning.
And don't think the professional hypnotists are going to give you an entirely truthful explanation of the benefits and risks of what they do - the fact of the matter is, if they admitted the truth, they would not only be jobless, but would be opening themselves to all sorts of malpractise suits. Asking a hypnotist if hypnotism works is a bit like asking a door-to-door vaccum cleaner salesman if his product really works.