I learned how to walk when I was around 10-11 months old. I still remember showing it to visiting relatives, and is my first memory that I can date.
I can date other memories relatively accurately because they are from an apartment where I only lived until I was 2 years old. They probably don't go as far much farther back than my first memory. I remember playing with a car, looking out the window, meeting my neighbour who I never saw again after we moved etc.
Some may call them false memories, but I don't see any reason why we should not be able to keep memories alive if we think about them from time to time? It's not like there's a big "reset" on your birthday that deletes all information from your brain. I have always reflected on the past from an early age, and I think the memories were kept alive by this and moved into the more mature part of the brain as time went on. At least that is my theory.
Maybe most people don't remember their first years because they don't reflect on them from an early age, and the memories are destroyed as the brain changes and evolves? Like a LRU cache :-)
I can date other memories relatively accurately because they are from an apartment where I only lived until I was 2 years old. They probably don't go as far much farther back than my first memory. I remember playing with a car, looking out the window, meeting my neighbour who I never saw again after we moved etc.
Some may call them false memories, but I don't see any reason why we should not be able to keep memories alive if we think about them from time to time? It's not like there's a big "reset" on your birthday that deletes all information from your brain. I have always reflected on the past from an early age, and I think the memories were kept alive by this and moved into the more mature part of the brain as time went on. At least that is my theory.
Maybe most people don't remember their first years because they don't reflect on them from an early age, and the memories are destroyed as the brain changes and evolves? Like a LRU cache :-)