Lost memories of "real" babyhood

[thatsmymango]

I'm not AB ... but I thought this news item may interest ABs.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

What is ignored is Statistics. Any scientific claim or study that uses figures is, by nature, statistical. there are two components to statistics; central tendency and dispersion which, taken as a whole, makee upa "distribution. This means that while MOST of the resutls will fall in a predictable range known as the "standard deviation from the mean", some results will fall more than 1 or even 2 standard deviations above and below the meann (which is the total of all the scores of the resutls of a test or study that usues numerical measure divided by the number of trials) and that this is to be expected and if this is not true then something is wrong or the results are a "fluke [nothing went or was done wrong, it is just the way the ball bounces]". Thus if 500 tests for memory are done and the mean is 24 months. We knew that a certain number will be at 12 months and te same or a similar number will be at 36 months and also in between. If you graph it, iy resembles a mound or a bell. We can even make a good estimate at how many. They do not all pile up on the 24 month mark. What this menas is that, though rare, it is not implausible for memories of things happening at age 12 months to occur

Now for you to have a "learned memory" means you would have to have been told about this and converted the verbal description into a visual impression that is accurate. What you would not know is what a "soldier" or "train" is at that age. I have memories of having rubber panties put on me at some time between age 2 and 3. One is the peach pink ones and the other is the semi-transparent ecu ones. Now I did not know they were "rubber panties" or "peach pink" or "semi-tranparent ecru". I just remember visual images. How I know what they were is that they fit things I know I learned later and made a backward connection. However, I know I did that

[thatsmymango]

What is ignored is Statistics. Any scientific claim or study that uses figures is, by nature, statistical. there are two components to statistics; central tendency and dispersion which, taken as a whole, makee upa "distribution. This means that while MOST of the resutls will fall in a predictable range known as the "standard deviation from the mean", some results will fall more than 1 or even 2 standard deviations above and below the meann (which is the total of all the scores of the resutls of a test or study that usues numerical measure divided by the number of trials) and that this is to be expected and if this is not true then something is wrong or the results are a "fluke [nothing went or was done wrong, it is just the way the ball bounces]". Thus if 500 tests for memory are done and the mean is 24 months. We knew that a certain number will be at 12 months and te same or a similar number will be at 36 months and also in between. If you graph it, iy resembles a mound or a bell. We can even make a good estimate at how many. They do not all pile up on the 24 month mark. What this menas is that, though rare, it is not implausible for memories of things happening at age 12 months to occur

Now for you to have a "learned memory" means you would have to have been told about this and converted the verbal description into a visual impression that is accurate. What you would not know is what a "soldier" or "train" is at that age. I have memories of having rubber panties put on me at some time between age 2 and 3. One is the peach pink ones and the other is the semi-transparent ecu ones. Now I did not know they were "rubber panties" or "peach pink" or "semi-tranparent ecru". I just remember visual images. How I know what they were is that they fit things I know I learned later and made a backward connection. However, I know I did that

[Rachel Emily]

I don't care what anyone says--I have memories of being changed, and even described to my mother what kind of diapers she used, even though she never told me this. They were the 21X40 Curity with their distinctive pinked edges--it's the edges of the diaper that I remember. In particular I have memories of being diapered at a public swimming pool, on a blanket in my grandparents' back yard, and on a sofa in my grandparents' living room. So either I could remember farther back than I was "supposed" to, or my mother diapered me later than I thought.

[Rachel Emily]

I wonder--is there a correlation between speaking early and early memories? My mother always claimed that I spoke full sentences at one year.

[Denube]

I don't know, but I know I've got memories from ridiculously early in my life, just two though, and nothing related to babyish nature. I was in a playpen at night with a flashing stoplight outside of the window for one memory. In the other, I was in a crib. I wasn't able to walk at the time, I think. Not very vibrant, but they are the two earliest memories I've got.

[Elfy]

This is the reason why eyewitness accounts should NOT be considered great evidence.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

If it were that unreliable, we would not be having this discussion, having not evolved to this point or gone extinct. I suspect that is the exception to the rule

[Denube]

The problem is that memories are notoriously unreliable, and this is verifiable though both scientific study and anecdotal evidence. Two people will often remember events very differently although they both experienced the same event from nearly the same perspective. One might miss details that others may notice, or pick up on certain emotions a bit differently than the other person may remember. For example, what may be described as a strong, passionate debate by one person might be described as a shouting match by the other participant. Body language that one person might not feel as threatening might well be highly threatening to another, and that will color someone's memories as well.

[Baby Brian]

Has anyone here ever had a truly vivid dream of when they were younger?

I did once, long story short it felt so real I honestly had to question if it really happened or not. It took some serious thinking and logical reasoning to determine it did not. Still, I can see where some people would come forward after decades and say something like "I just remembered a suppressed event in my life so now I'm going to bring my father to court for abuse when I was a child". A very tricky situation to say the least.

[wetatnight]

my memories of actual baby hood are very limited

[BabyJune]

We are born with more brain cells than the average human could ever use in a lifetime, so I partially disagree with that article about our early memories getting wiped out to reuse those cells. As to why our earliest memories remain in the shadows, I often wondered that myself. Obviously we must have had some good memories of being a baby or we wouldn't be trying to reconstruct some of the more pleasant events now. The memories are no doubt still there but are in a sector of our brains that we can't readily--or easily-tap into.

[Diaper_Angel]

Just like everything, I CANT believe its as cut and dry as that.

I have DEFF had memories of my early childhood (earliest was about 3-4 years old)

when I was 9 my sister was talking about when she was 8 and I was 4. we had gone to the fair and she was not allowed to ride one of the rides.

I finished her story without hearing it and described the man controlling the ride as well as how things went.

what she told me

"I remember when I was little and we went to the fair, I wanted to go on that ride and they wouldn't let me because I was to young and I cried"

what I described (and was confirmed by both my mom and sister as to what happened)

"You went up to the guy controling the ride, he was a bigger man with glasses and a teal t-shirt and dark hair, you stood on tip toe to ask him if you could ride while mom and I stood back because mom was talking to some one. when you turned around and came back to us you started to cry and I got very angry with that man because he made you cry, so I gave you the rest of my cotton candy"

[Baby Brian]

Part of the problem is that what we truly see, and what we remember and simply not the same thing. This phenomenon has been studied in great detail. It can often lead people to believe on thing, when something else had actually happened- even though they witnessed the actual event first hand. Additionally, those memories can be repressed, forgotten, or simply ignored as being the truth.