Adults Postdated Their Earliest Childhood Memories
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Memory ISSN: 0965-8211 (Print) 1464-0686 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pmem20 Looking at the past through a telescope: adults postdated their earliest childhood memories Qi Wang, Carole Peterson, Angel Khuu, Carissa P. Reid, Kayleigh L. Maxwell & Julia M. Vincent To cite this article: Qi Wang, Carole Peterson, Angel Khuu, Carissa P. Reid, Kayleigh L. Maxwell & Julia M. Vincent (2017): Looking at the past through a telescope: adults postdated their earliest childhood memories, Memory, DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2017.1414268 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2017.1414268 Published online: 13 Dec 2017. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 56 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=pmem20 MEMORY, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2017.1414268 Looking at the past through a telescope: adults postdated their earliest childhood memories Qi Wanga, Carole Petersonb, Angel Khuua, Carissa P. Reidb, Kayleigh L. Maxwellb and Julia M. Vincentb aDepartment of Human Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; bDepartment of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Newfoundland, Canada ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Our previous studies have consistently shown a telescoping error in children’s dating of earliest Received 3 July 2017 childhood memories. Preschool children through adolescents systematically date their earliest Accepted 3 December 2017 memories at older ages, in comparison with the age estimates provided by their parents or by KEYWORDS themselves previously. In the current study, we examined the dating of earliest childhood Childhood amnesia; memories in two samples of college adults and collected independent age estimates from their postdating; earliest memory; parents. Consistent with our findings with children, adults significantly postdated their earlier memory age estimate; memories by approximately 12 months (Study 1) and 6 months (Study 2). The actual age of earliest telescoping memories was 2.5 years after adjusted for telescoping errors, 1 year earlier than what is commonly believed at 3.5 years. These findings challenge commonly held theoretical assumptions about childhood amnesia and highlight critical methodological issues in the study of childhood memory. Childhood amnesia has been a subject of lasting interest Peterson, and Hou (2010) asked Chinese and European among psychologists for over a century. It refers to the Canadian 8-, 11-, and 14-year-old children to recall and common phenomenon where adults typically cannot date memories for events that occurred before they went remember any event from their childhood that took place to school. Children’s parents verified each of the memories before they were 3.5 years old on average (Bauer, 2007; children recalled and provided independent age estimates Peterson, 2012; Pillemer & White, 1989). Developmental for these memories. For the memory events that parents studies have further shown that childhood amnesia can verified as happening before children were 48 months, be observed in children as young as age 8 or 9 years and children dated the memories at significantly older ages becomes more pervasive as children get older (Cleveland than did their parents. In contrast, for the events that & Reese, 2008; Jack, MacDonald, Reese, & Hayne, 2009; parents verified as happening after children were 48 Peterson, Grant, & Boland, 2005; Peterson, Warren, & Short, months, children dated the memories at significantly 2011; Tustin & Hayne, 2010;Wang,2004). Critically, the younger ages than did their parents. This pattern was con- most commonly used method for studying childhood sistent across age and culture groups. Given that the single amnesia is to examine the age of earliest memory, earliest memories mostly occurred before 48 months dubbed as the offset of childhood amnesia. It is considered (Peterson, 2012; Pillemer & White, 1989; Rubin, 2000; to be the turning point from which early memories become Wang & Peterson, 2014), these memories tend to be accessible to conscious recall. The age of earliest memory postdated. has served as the basis for major theoretical explanations Notably, studies prior to Wang et al. (2010) had also for childhood amnesia and the development of memory attempted to verify the dating accuracy of early childhood in early childhood more generally (Bauer, 2007;Nelson& memories by comparing dating information provided by Fivush, 2004; Perner & Ruffman, 1995; Peterson, 2012; Pille- participants and that provided by parents or other adults mer & White, 1989;Wang,2003). However, recent cross-sec- who were present at the time of the events (e.g., Bauer, tional and longitudinal studies on children’s recollection of Burch, Scholin, & Güler, 2007; Bruce, Dolan, & Phillips- early childhood have shown that the age of earliest Grant, 2000; Eacott & Crawley, 1998; Howes, Siegel, & memory is in fact systematically biased in estimate. Brown, 1993; Jack et al., 2009). The general conclusion was that there were no systematic dating errors in early childhood memories. The key methodological difference Children postdate their earliest childhood between these studies and Wang et al. (2010) is that in memories these studies, the mean age estimate provided by partici- In the first study that focused on the accuracy of children’s pants was compared against the mean age estimate pro- age estimates of early childhood memories, Wang, vided by parents, whereas in Wang et al. (2010), CONTACT Qi Wang [email protected] Department of Human Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 2 Q. WANG ET AL. children’s dating of each memory was verified against the from the same period, whereby events are thought to dating information provided by parents. Indeed, the mean have happened earlier or in a more distant past than age estimates provided by children and by parents were they actually have and, as a result, they tend to be pre- almost identical in Wang et al. (2010), just as in prior dated. These dating errors eventually cause the estimated studies. Because children postdated earlier memories and dates to move toward the middle of the target period predated later memories, these two trends largely can- (Janssen et al., 2006; Loftus & Marburger, 1983; Rubin & celled each other out, so that calculations of mean ages Baddeley, 1989; Thompson et al., 1988). of children’s memories by children vs. parents ended up Importantly, information about “when” of an event is being almost identical. not always encoded with information about “where” and Wang and Peterson (2014) subsequently conducted two “what”, but often reconstructed at the time of recall prospective studies to examine children’s recall and dating (Brewer, 1988; Brown, 1990; Thompson, Skowronski, of their earliest memories for the same events longitudin- Larsen, & Betz, 1996). Retention has been shown to be a ally, at two different time points. They asked 4–13-year- critical determinant for the accuracy of event date esti- old children to recall and date their three earliest memories mation (Betz & Skowronski, 1997; Thompson et al., 1996). at two time points, with a 1-year (Study 1) or 2-year interval Thus, although the mechanism underlying telescoping (Study 2). It was found that across all age groups, children and reverse telescoping is not entirely clear, there have postdated their memories to significantly older ages at the been proposals that the incomplete retention of memories follow-up interview, particularly for memories initially as a result of elapsed time may contribute to such impreci- dated from earlier years of life. Thus, although children sion in memory dating (Huttenlocher, Hedges, & Prohaska, continued to remember many of the same events as 1988; Janssen et al., 2006; Rubin & Baddeley, 1989). their earliest memories, the location in time of the mem- Because all the events being dated have presumably hap- ories shifted to an older age as time went by. pened during the target period (e.g., the first semester at Then, in a further 8-year longitudinal study with a group college, or the past 6 months), whenever dating errors of 4–9-year-old children, Wang and Peterson (2016) exam- occur, older events are generally postdated (i.e., telescop- ined children’s recall and dating of their earliest memories ing) and more recent events are generally predated (i.e., at three time points: an initial interview, a 2-year follow-up, reverse telescoping) so that the recollected dates would and an 8-year follow-up. They found that earliest memories fall in the requested period. Furthermore, because older continued to be postdated many years following the pre- events tend to be less well retained, the magnitude of vious recalls and that the magnitude of postdating was dating errors for these events tend to be more pro- especially sizable for earlier memories and among nounced, when compared with more recent events. younger children. Importantly, many early memories Our findings with children’s age estimates of early child- were forgotten as children got older, consistent with the hood memories are consistent with this literature: When findings of other longitudinal studies (Jack et al., 2009; recalling events from the period of early childhood, pre- Peterson et al., 2005, 2009; Tustin & Hayne, 2010). Yet, for school children through adolescents exhibited telescoping the memories that children continued to remember, the errors by postdating their earliest memories to older ages dating of the memories shifted upward in time. Based on (Wang et al., 2010; Wang & Peterson, 2014, 2016), and exhib- these findings, Wang and Peterson (2014, 2016) suggest ited reverse telescoping errors by predating their later mem- that the postdating of earliest childhood memories may ories to younger ages (Wang et al., 2010), in comparison eventually result in a period of childhood “amnesia” from with the age estimates provided by their parents or by which no memories are dated, instead of no memories themselves previously. The largest errors showing telescop- available for recall.