Looking at the past through a telescope: adults postdated their earliest childhood memories

Beyond Repressed Memory: Current Alternative Solutions to the Controversy

Debates surrounding the origin of recovered memories of child abuse have traditionally focused on two conflicting arguments, namely that these memories are either false memories or instances of repressed memories (i.e., reflecting the idea that people can unconsciously block traumatic autobiographical experiences and eventually regain access). While scientific evidence for the first is clearly established, the second is the subject of a controversy in the academic, clinical, and legal fields. This controversy rages on today. In this introductory article to our topic "Beyond Repressed Memory: Current Alternative Solutions to the Controversy," we present alternative and more parsimonious explanations for repressed memories that we sorted into three categories: cognitive, motivational, and biological factors. Our aim is to provide a timely overview to help clinical and legal professionals, academics, and the general public to move beyond the idea that traumatic memories can be unconsciously repressed.

Factors influencing adult cognitive appraisals of childhood sexual abuse

BACKGROUND

Adult appraisals of their childhood sexual experiences as abusive are associated with increased risk for long-term psychological problems. Factors that underlie whether adults appraise their childhood sexual experiences as abusive remain unknown.

OBJECTIVE

To determine factors associated with adult cognitive appraisals of childhood sexual abuse.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

Participants were 1196 adults ages 19-41 (M = 29.23, SD = 3.84) with documented cases of childhood maltreatment (sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect) during the years 1967-1971 and demographically matched controls who were followed-up and interviewed in adulthood.

METHODS

Using a prospective cohort design, participants were asked to recall whether they had any sexual experiences in childhood, and if so, the frequency of abuse, age at the onset of abuse, relationship to perpetrator, and whether they appraised the experiences as sexually abusive.

RESULTS

Over half of the sample (52%) reported childhood sexual experiences, yet only 44% considered those experiences sexually abusive. Participants with documented cases of child sexual abuse and neglect were more likely to appraise their childhood sexual experiences as abusive compared to controls. Participants who reported more severe abuse, more frequent abuse, younger age at the onset of abuse, and intrafamilial and both intra- and extrafamilial abuse (vs. extrafamilial abuse) were more likely to consider their experiences abusive. Compared to males and Black participants, females and White participants were more likely to appraise their experiences as abusive.

CONCLUSIONS

Understanding factors that determine adult cognitive appraisals of childhood sexual experiences as abusive can inform clinical interventions for maltreated populations.

What is your earliest memory? It depends

This article is a selective review of the literature on childhood amnesia, followed by new analyses of both published and unpublished data that has been collected in my laboratory over two decades. Analyses point to the fluidity of people's earliest memories; furthermore, methodological variation leads to individuals recalling memories from substantially earlier in their lives. How early one's "earliest" memory is depends on whether you have multiple interviews, how many early memories were requested within an interview, the type of interview, participation in prior tasks, etc. As well, people often provide chronologically earlier memories within the same interview in which they later identify a chronologically older memory as their "earliest". There may also be systematic mis-dating to older ages of very early memories. Overall, people may have a lot more memories from their preschool years than is widely believed, and be able to recall events from earlier in their lives than has been historically documented.

Do you remember? Similarities and differences between the earliest childhood memories for the five senses

We perceive the world with our five senses. However, the role that these five senses play in early childhood memories has received relatively little attention. Against this background, participants (N = 117) were asked to write down their earliest childhood memories for the five senses and to answer additional questions regarding these memories. There was no significant difference between the five senses regarding the percentage of participants reporting a memory or between the valence and the subjective reliability of the reported memories. However, memories reported for sight were marginally longer, from a younger age, and estimated to be more important compared to memories reported for the other senses. A qualitative content analysis revealed that the vast majority of the reported memories fell into a limited number of categories. Interestingly, several categories played a role in more than one sense. Nevertheless, the reported memories also mirrored the characteristic properties that one is able to perceive with each sense. Overall, the findings support the notion that sight is the dominant sense. At the same time, they remind us that each sense provides us with unique information about ourselves and the world around us.

Recollection improves with age: children's and adults' accounts of their childhood experiences

Since the time of Freud, psychologists have drawn conclusions about children's memory on the basis of retrospective research with adults. Here, we turn the tables by examining what prospective studies with children and adolescents can tell us about the retrospective memory accounts provided by adults. Adults were interviewed about recent events and events from different points during their childhood (Age 5, Age 10) and early adolescence (Age 13). Children (5- and 8- to 9-year-olds) and young adolescents (12- to 13-year-olds) were interviewed about recent events. When matched for age at the time of encoding, adults recalled more about the target events than did 5-year-olds, even though the retention interval for adults was substantially longer. We conclude that retrospective studies with adults may lead researchers to overestimate the content of the early childhood memories that survive. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings for an understanding of memory development and the practical implications for the interpretation of adults' retrospective accounts in the courtroom.