As I was thrown in the face that my memories of two and three are supposedly "induced memories", I researched what psychology calls "infantile amnesia". That is to say "the amnesic phenomenon affecting episodic memory which leads to the poverty of memories relating to the first years of life and in particular to their absence before two years". (Source Amnésie infantile — Wikipédia (wikipedia.org))
Here is what I found for scientific articles:
"Childhood amnesia was examined in a cross-group study of adult memories of 4 datable target events: the birth of a younger sibling, hospitalization, death of a family member, and family relocation. 222 middle school students answered questions about events that happened when they were 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 years old and also about external sources of information, such as family histories.The results show that the amnesia lag childhood (earliest age of recall) is 2 years for hospitalization and birth of a sibling and 3 years for death and moving, so some memories are available earlier in childhood than research precedents have suggested."
Contrary to what research believed, a 2-year-old has memories and can recall them.
"conclusion
In the analyzes discussed above, I have repeatedly shown that variations in research methodology are associated with individuals recalling memories from younger ages. If dating errors by telescoping errors are added to the equation, this strongly indicates that individuals' first memories may be up to a year or more earlier than they believe and are supposed to be. usually. So while an age of around 3½ has been widely believed to be the age of earliest memories, a more accurate age may be more like 2½. Another implication is that most people probably have more early memories than they realize that we usually attribute to people. Moreover, it seems relatively easy to encourage people to find older memories than they usually do when asked to identify their first memory.
In the field, the focus has often been on why there are no or so few memories of the early preschool years, and how we can account for this theoretically. Perhaps an important side question may be how we can help people access the multiple memories they often seem to have." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2021.1918174 meta-analysis listing the testimonies of some 11,000 adults: only 1.1% of reported childhood memories occurred before the age of 3 years. The distribution of early childhood memories "In summary, childhood amnesia, as measured by the distribution of autobiographical memories, is a robust phenomenon that is nearly identical in quantitative terms in studies using different methods and different populations. Of the auto- biographical memories reported as occurringbefore age 11, 1.1%occurred before age 3, with a sharp rise afterthat point. Two limitations need to be added to these conclusions. First, only the number of early childhood memories has been noted. We know much less about their content, vividness, narrative coherence, the amount of detail included, the sense that the memories were recollected rather than just known (Rybash & Monaghan, 1999), and their other properties. The second limitation is that all the data reviewed were collected in the USA. Data from other cultures would almost certainly be different(Mullen, 1994; Pillemer, 1998a). Given the stability of the USA data reviewed here over a host of methods and populations, any differences should be easy to observe." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10932795/ "83 children then aged 3 and their mothers, on their experiences and recorded their memories.
During the interview, the children were therefore asked about events dating back to 2 to 6 years earlier.
The researchers find that:
· At the age of 5 and 6 and 7 years old, children remember 63 to 72% of the events of the beginning of life,
· By the age of 8 or 9, children remember about 35% of early life events.
· if older children remember fewer events, when they remember them, it is with more details.
· The children whose parents allowed them to express themselves the most during the first interview at age 3 are those who then bring back, at age 9, the most memories of the beginnings of life, and who also have the more accurate stored events.
The explanation put forward would be that the memories that last the longest are the most striking, so are stored with more information, and that the linguistic skills of older children then make it possible to better restore them. The researcher compares the brains of very young children to sieves through which the less significant memories will escape." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09658211.2013.854806 And this article in French: https://www.cairn.info/revue-devenir-2011-4-page-379.htm?ref=doi
What emerges is that research and scientists disagree on the "cut-off" age at which a person can remember their childhood, they hesitate between two and three years. Then these figures are an AVERAGE and therefore by definition, in an average, there will be people who will have memories before and others after... There are people with hypermnesia, they remember everything and people who forget everything, in Alzheimer's disease for example. Memory is a very complex phenomenon and still very far from being understood! The brain and its functioning is still very little known and misunderstood! And another thorny point is that they don't take into account dissociation, DID and its functioning, what is a psychotrauma...
A book has just been published: "The abused baby is silent, but he speaks!" by Dr. Myriam Pierson-Berthier. I find it very interesting and advise you to read it!!
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