I can agree with that.
Corroboration of what? That the event happened? I’m not questioning if the event happened, just how your memory of it was constructed. How can you separate your firsthand observation of the event from a confabulation or acquisition of it at a later date, from a different source?
Well, there are cases discussed where some event happens to a young child, and is not discussed again until that child is older, perhaps even an adult, and the corroboration comes from a person who was present, as an adult, at the original event. If you want to argue that’s not a real memory, but a fake memory of a memory, of a memory, or some such, I think that’s just another way of describing the way persistent memory works anyway.
But it seems almost like you’re arguing that some of these described memories are strongly semblant of the witness’ version of events by pure coincidence. That’s absurd, and if it’s truly what you’re saying, needs a shave with Occam’s razor.
I’m not sure. I think it’s just damn frustrating to be told you’re wrong about something you’re quite sure is true, by someone who doesn’t even really appear to have paid much interest to what you said.
Granted, this is one area where it’s possible to be sure, and be completely wrong, but you’ll see exactly the same kind of exasperation in, say, a thread where someone says they’ve seen a cat jump six feet in the air, and someone else thinks all the textbooks say that’s flat out impossible.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I am a big proponent of cross-checking my memories and my track record thus far is impeccable down to age 3 or so. I even demonstrated one earlier in the thread. This was mundane stuff that no one would ever talk about and I have hundreds of memories from around that age. I also have clear date markers in the form of changing houses and my parents changing jobs that make it easy to prove the age when they came from.
It is frustrating to hear someone say that it is impossible or extremely unlikely. It isn’t for me and that was in no way carried through in family conversation because my family doesn’t work that way and much of it is so mundane that no one would ever mention it again anyway.
I don’t think that I am exceptional although my long-term memory is better than average (short-term is a different story). This seems like a very suspect area of research to me. Instead of asking whether someone had a separation trauma in early childhood, why don’t they ask what a early pet was like (Hobart - a Doberman for me who was put to sleep when I was three and I cried when I found out what really happened). They could ask lots of other mundane things as well. I took swimming lessons when I was 3. I don’t remember the ladies name but the last name started with something like “Mac” and I know the town it was located in because I went there for 6 weeks and came out knowing how to swim.
The list is endless. Is this really that hard?
I would like to make it clear though, that I do understand the notion of a false memory being utterly compelling, or a memory that has been reinforced by constant revisitation and discussion over the years not really being based on the original any more. I’m sure I have some of the former and I know for sure I have some of the latter*
But I do also have some early memories that I only recently discussed again with those who were present at the time, and (some of them) were corroborated by those people. Now it could be argued that the witness I discussed it with was just saying ‘yeah, that’s… right’ to avoid the embarrassment of not remembering anything about it, but I don’t think so, because the conversation went something like:
Me: Do you remember [event A]?
Witness: Yes, but you were only a baby
Me: I remember it, because [detail B]
Witness: Wow! that’s right, and also, [detail C], and then [event D]!
-and that’s the crucial and compelling part of the corroboration for me, because detail C and event D were also already part of my memory, but they weren’t part of the account that I could have been argued to have ‘fed’ to the witness.
*I was an early talker and sometime after my first birthday, I was in the garden with some ‘auntie’ or other and I pointed to a plant and said “mesembryanthemums” - she couldn’t believe her ears and ran to fetch my mother, who wasn’t quite so suprised because she’d been telling me that the flowers were called that the day before. The thing is, I remember this event in crisp, clear detail, but I’m sure that nearly all of my memory is composed of my imagination of what it must have been like, reinforced by the story being brought up regularly as a subject of discussion throughout my childhood.
At age 81, I find on very rare occasions that a memory of a specific matter will come to me. On the other hand, I am convinced that most memories are of things significant, and must ne reconstituted from time to time. I cannot sing all the words of the hundreds of songs I once knew, but can sing along with recordings quite well. The value of a memory is related to the worthiness of any given recollection; with young people doing will to read a great deal: that is the modality for learning. Words come back to me very often, that I first learned fifty, sixty or seventy years ago. Here’s a bonus: The greatest thing you’ll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return.
I have a friend who claims to remember being born. Anyway, I have vivid memories of things from age 2 and earlier. I distinctly remember being in a high chair and my mother constantly tapping my teeth while trying to spoon feed me. I really hated that.
Other memories I didn’t realize how early they were until much later. Several years ago, my aunt gave me a lot of old photos. Some were from my great-grandfather’s funeral. The photos were dated when I was not quite three years old, and the funeral was in the winter. Yet, I distinctly remember summer events with my ggfather – going to a parade, for example. it was a Memorial Day parade, so I was just past my 2nd birthday at the time.
I’ve always had an eerie memory. I recall being a team and driving with my family, my father would point out a house we used to live in, but he’d say I’m too young to remember. Then I’d rattle off the names of the neighbors we had. Despite being one of the youngest of my generation, relatives consider me the default argument settler on past events. While most of my friends can’t remember their grade school teachers, I can remember the seating plan.
Not at all. I am only suggesting that the source of the image may not be from firsthand observance. Images from different sources – and the record of the source has been discarded – may have been combined into a composite.
From The Skeptic’s Dictionary. You will find references in that article:
(bolding mine)
I suggest, without proof, that the younger we were when the event occurred, or the farther back in time an event was, the less reliable is the source. This casts doubt on the source of memory of events for very young children.
But what evidence is this claim based on? Why do you believe that a memory an 18yo has of an event 15 years earlier is less reliable than the memory of a 30 year old that occured when she was 15?
This is the question that everybody seems to be avoiding. What evidence is there that age plays any role at all, rather than simply the passage of time? Yet nobody is saying that nothing an older person remebers from their youth is reliable, while many people are saying that nothing a yound person recalls of their infancy is reliable.
Blake, would it come to you as a surprise if I said that young children are highly suggestible? Do you really need research to confirm that children play fantasy games? Would you believe it if a preschool teacher told you so?
Let’s look at it another way. I imagine we can agree that something happening to a 1 day old child is not likely to be accurately recorded for later recall by that subject. But something happening at age 6 probably can be. Can we agree on these as end-points?
If so, then all we are arguing is where more accurate recording begins to replace no memory at all, and where mostly fantasy is replaced by mostly reality.
If you are interested enough to pursue this subject, I recommend Loftus’s works, as she is the premier researcher in these and related categories. She is not prone to wild pronouncements, but reasoned analysis. Maybe she can answer your questions better than I.
Does it surprise you that Loftus says that adults are also highly suggetsible.
So once agian, there is no reason to assume any difefernce between adults and children unless we can see some evidence.
Do you really need evidence that adults play fantasy games? Would you believe it if a psychologist tod you so?
So once again, no reason to assume any diffrence without evdience.
No, not without evidence. We’ve just seen all this evdience from Loftus that adult memeories are immmeionsely unreliable and inaccurate, somehting that any police officer will also confirm.
So no, I won’t accept those as end points wihtout data. That is simply begging the question
Applying the same standard to adult memeorieas peopel in this thread have applied to infant meories why do you assume that adult memeories are real as opposed to constructed?
I have little intention of reaidng through over 100 papers by this author in the hopes the answer is in there somewhere.
A statement was made in GQ, a forum for factual answers. I am hoping the person making the statement can provide the evidence to support the statement rather than handballing it to an entire anthology by a third party.
Jeez, if someone said that gravity decreased to the 6th power and referred tit to “something by Hawking” it woudl be laughed out of the boards.
Again, though - that children are suggestible and susceptible to implantation of false memories does not automatically mean every memory they (think they) have is the result of false implantation and suggestion. I’m sorry to keep coming back to this, but it seems to me that people are arguing that because Loftus says dogs are animals, all animals are therefore dogs.