When four of us shared memories of our very young lives, not one of us could recall events before the age of 4 or possibly 3. For adults, remembering events only after age 3½ or 4 is typical, studies have found. The Henris published a questionnaire on early memories in 1895, and the results from 123 people were published in 1897. Most of the participants’ earliest memories came from when they were 2 to 4 years old; the average was age 3. One widely studied idea relates the formation of children’s earliest memories to when they start talking about past events with their mothers, suggesting a link between memories and the age of language acquisition.

Source: New York Times March 27, 2017 18:00 UTC