How malleable are young adults’ recall of their earliest memories?

(Image provided by The Synapse / Artwork by Incé Husain)

“Although this study primarily contributes to our understanding of early memory encoding during childhood and its retrieval in adulthood, our findings also have relevance to forensic psychology. It is important to understand how individuals recall their earliest memories when assessing eyewitness or victim testimony in historical cases involving children.” ~Aaron Murphy

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*In the following article, TS refers to The Synapse, and AM refers to Aaron Murphy;

TS: Could you briefly introduce yourself, your supervisor, the topic of your thesis, and the field it contributes to?

AM: My name is Aaron Murphy. Earlier this month, I completed my Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Psychology at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), in which I conducted my thesis under the supervision of Dr. Carole Peterson.

My research assesses how malleable young adults’ recall of their earliest memories are. Specifically, my topic was whether priming information (i.e., the information offered prior to memory recall) could influence participants’ estimates of when their earliest memories occurred. Further, we then interviewed participants’ parents to determine if their estimate was accurate, or if they were misdating an event that had actually happened at a later date. As this topic pertains to how memories from early in life are encoded and retrieved, this research contributes primarily to the field of developmental psychology.

TS: What is the inspiration for your study, and the research question? Does your study relate to other fields?

AM: The inspiration for this study stems from the emergence of historical child abuse cases in the judicial system, notably those involving children who endured Canada’s residential schools. Since most, if not all, physical evidence is lost to time in these cases, the recollection of victims and eyewitnesses is of utmost importance. Thus, it is crucial to gain a better understanding of how these early memories are retrieved, and if this recollection can be influenced by external information offered prior to recall.

The findings of current research on childhood amnesia (i.e., the earliest that one can remember, with memories from earlier periods being inaccessible to the individual) suggest that early memory recall is influenced by a myriad of factors - like age at the time of recall, birth order, or culture - that change the “age barrier” at which earlier memories become inaccessible. Research has also shown that priming can influence the dating of earlier memories, but it is unclear whether this indicates that primed individuals recall earlier events, or simply misdate later events to better align with primed information. Recalling earlier events and misdating later events are two very different things, with potentially harmful implications regarding testimony in historical child abuse cases. Thus, the focus of this study was to determine if priming did influence the dating of earliest memories, and if these changes caused participants to recall earlier memories or misdate later ones. The use of parent verification for dating memories has been done in child samples, but this is the first study to utilize parent verification in young adult populations.

Although this study primarily contributes to our understanding of early memory encoding during childhood and its retrieval in adulthood, our findings also have relevance to forensic psychology. It is important to understand how individuals recall earliest memories when assessing eyewitness or victim testimony in historical cases involving children.

TS: Could you provide a brief summary of the methods/ experimental procedure used in this study?

AM: This study used qualitative, free-recall interviews with participants and their parents. First, participants were quasi-randomly assigned to either an age 2 or age 4 priming condition. Next, participants were provided an outline of what the study would entail, offered priming information corresponding with their priming condition (i.e., “typically, earliest memories are recalled from age 2”; or “typically, earliest memories are recalled from age 4” ), and given two made-up examples of memories “recalled” from the age corresponding to their priming condition.

Participants were then asked to recall their three earliest memories. After each memory was described, participants were asked to date the memory to the best of their ability, and with as much precision as possible (i.e., ideally, we asked them to give the year and month that the event took place).

Once the interview had concluded, if given permission, we would collect the participants’ parent contact information, and conduct an interview with their parents. Parents were read a brief summary of their children’s memories which were carefully edited to ensure that any time clues were removed (e.g., a child who stated they were “in their third-grade classroom” would be edited to state they were simply “at school”). After being read the description, parents were asked to verify whether the event had happened, and if so, were asked to give a precise date estimate for the event. Dating of memories was compared across priming groups to determine if priming information influenced participants’ dating estimates of earliest memories.

A secondary analysis was then conducted on only participants whose parents participated in the study. In this analysis, participants’ dating estimates were compared to those of their parents to determine whether priming information appeared to change dating estimates or whether dating estimates aligned with those provided by a third party.

TS: What are the main results you observed?

AM: The findings of the primary analysis suggest that priming information did influence the dating estimates of earliest memories, with dating estimates being, on average, 10 months lower in those of the age 2 priming condition than those of the age 4 priming condition.

Our secondary analysis, consisting of only individuals with established parent verification, suffered considerably from our relatively low parent follow-up and did not reach significance on any measures.

Although not statistically significant, we did observe that dating estimates differed slightly based on priming condition and that the dating estimates given by parents in both groups did not considerably differ, suggesting that the influence of priming information extends only to the misdating of later memories rather than the recovery of earlier ones. However, due to the small sample size and lack of statistical significance, more research is necessary to conclude this with any certainty. As such, I am continuing to conduct the experiment in the coming year, so that analysis can be replicated with a larger sample size.

Overall, I am confident that with a larger sample of parent-verified participants, the results of our secondary analysis will better resemble those of our primary analysis, and thus offer a better understanding of the influence of priming on early memory recall.

TS: What would you consider the most intriguing part of the research process?

AM: For me, I would say that the qualitative interviewing was the most interesting aspect of the study. I have always found that qualitative research is an underutilized tool in psychological research. In my years of participating in research at MUN, I am yet to be offered any qualitative research to participate in, and my study is currently the only study at MUN to require participant interviewing. I found that the interviewing process was much more engaging for both researchers and participants when compared to quantitative data collection and that this interviewing process offered our lab better insight into our participants’ thought processes.

TS: Is there anything else you wish to share about the research experience/ study?

AM: Overall, I felt that the study was a worthwhile endeavor, one with the potential for exciting results in the coming year. I am a strong proponent of qualitative research in the field of psychology and would highly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to conduct research this way later in their career. Lastly, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to discuss my research with your readers, and hope that you found my research to be interesting! Ψ

Created for The Synapse by Incé Husain.