Adults’ earliest memories as a function of age, gender, and education in a large stratified sample.

Abstract

Childhood amnesia (i.e., a marked paucity of memories from the first 3-4 years of life) has often been examined by asking people for their earliest memory. Such studies have generally been conducted with college students, and thus been unable to examine possible effects of education and current age. We here report the first study on adults' earliest memories based on a large, stratified sample covering the adult life span from age 20 to 70 (n = 1,043). Because of the nature and size of our sample we have been able to investigate a range of factors simultaneously that typically have been studied separately in other studies. Participants with higher education reported earlier first memories than respondents with lower education. Women reported earlier memories than men. There was no interaction between gender and educational level. The current age of the respondents did not affect age of earliest memory, but older respondents had more vivid and more coherent earliest memories relative to younger respondents. Finally, the data provided some support for the claim that elaborative parents have children with earlier memories.

Does Resilience Play a Mediating Role in the Link Between the Earliest Memory and Personality Traits? Analysis of the Positive Cognition in a Chinese Sample

“…For example, in the previous study on adults' earliest memories, it was found that adults' earliest memories can be dated back to the time when the respondents were between 3 and 4 years of age (Jack & Hayne, 2007). Regarding gender differences as well results go along with the earlier studies (Kingo et al, 2013).…”

Some personal life events are more prominent than others: Younger and older adults agree on which life events matter most

“…However, this pattern was general to almost all characteristics measured here: Older adults rated events more highly than did younger adults. Such results have been found previously, but have not been fully explained or understood (Kingo, Berntsen & Krøjgaard, 2013;, as Rubin and Schulkind (1997) stated, "Not much can be made of it except that it warrants further study (p. 532)."…”

Fictional First Memories

“…In many studies of the recall of earliest memories the first memory is found to date to the 3rd year of life, typically about 3 years 4 months (Hayne, 2004;Kingo, Berntsen, & Krøjgaard, 2013a;Pillemer & White, 1989;Rubin, 2000;Wang, Conway, & Hou, 2004). However, also in many studies, there are always a few respondents who date their earliest memory to 2 years of age and below (Hayne, 2004;Wells, Morrison & Conway, 2013; see too Kingo, Berntsen, & Krøjgaard, 2013b).…”