I easily have many memories from age 4. I think I even remember the first time that I started forming memories. It was a few years before that, I had come out of my room and saw some toys I was playing with the night before. I realized they were at the same spot I left them, which made me realize the world had permanence and my awareness had continuity. I could leave things at a certain spot and they would be there the next day, that I could build things and they would stay that way. I realized I could remember things, in a way like "homo sapiens sapiens" being thinking about thinking, I realized I remember that I could remember.

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rm445 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is a fascinating post but I don't believe it reflects (most) human memory development, which has a pronounced forgetting phase called 'childhood amnesia'. When your kid starts to talk, it's startling what a two-year-old can remember and can tell you about. And it's kinda heartbreaking when they're 4-5 and you realise that those early memories have faded.

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blauditore 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Note that your memories might not be accurate, as your brain may have skightly altered them over the years, over and over. There is generally no way for yourself to know (except for some external proof).

This is not just the case for early childhood memories, but for anything - the more time passes, the less accurate. It's even possible to have completely "made-up" memories, perceived as 100% real, e.g. through suggestive questioning in therapy.

	▲	usefulcat 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I can relate. I often feel like my earliest memories are now more like memories of memories, and I dimly recall that it wasn’t always like that.

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tgtweak 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Definitely have some memories from 3 years old - some people claim earlier and I wouldn't doubt that, although it's very rare for memories before 2 to be recalled episodically.

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tzs 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's also hard to be sure if early memories are actually memories from the actual event or are memories your brain constructed from later hearing people describe the event.

There was one experiment where researchers got a man's family at a holiday gathering of the extended family to start talking about funny things that had happened to family members when they were children. In particular the man's parents and siblings told about a funny incident that happened to the man during his 3rd grade school play.

The man had earlier agreed to participate in some upcoming psychological research but did not yet know the details or been told when the research would start.

Later he was contacted and told the research would be starting soon, and asked to come in an answer some background questions. They asked about early non-academic school activities and he told them about his 3rd grade play and the funny incident that happened, including details that his family had not mentioned.

Unbeknownst to the man the research had actually started earlier and the man's family had agreed to help out. That story about the 3rd grade play that his family told was actually given to them by the researchers. None of his elementary school classes had put on any plays.

This sort of thing can be a real problem. People being questioned about crimes (as witnesses or suspects) can get false memories of the crime if the person questioning them is not careful. Or worse, a questioner could intentionally get them to form false memories that they will later recall on the witness stand.

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avadodin 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The memories are probably nothing like how they were at the time, but I vividly remember running away from my parents with my elder sister, getting bullied by an extremely blond girl at day care, and falling and literally eating dirt including that it was salty around 2-3.

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jasonfarnon 4 hours ago | parent [-]

But at some point don't you lose the direct memory, and only retain remembering it? Eg I don't know that I directly remember the fight I got in with the neighbor kid at age 4, but I can definitely remember thinking about it for a something we had to write in school around age 8. Or at least I could when I was in high school. That's when I thought about the time I had to write that essay when I was 8. At some point all I remember are the like the layers of subsequent thoughts about the original event, and I don't really access the original event any more, or it's just a stub.

	▲	avadodin 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		At some point, most memories are like that, to be honest – not just early childhood ones. You could say I consider these are "vivid" because I can recall more details of them than of the average memory.

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7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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rubslopes 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I have one memory that I can place between late 2 and early 3: my mum telling me I was going to have a brother. When he was born, I was 3 years and 6 months old.