I remember being a baby. I recall being in a spacious operating room; I was handed to a nurse and then placed on a cold metal scale. I realize this memory is unusual because it stems from such an early stage of my life, but I suppose I might just have a good memory—or perhaps others can recall moments from their infancy as well.

What is the earliest event you can remember? How old were you at the time? How did you experience that memory? Was it vivid or vague? Positive or negative? Did you re-experience the memory exactly as it originally happened, or did you watch yourself “doing something” within the memory?

In our recent study, we asked over 6,000 people of all ages to do the same: to tell us what their first memory was, how old they were when the event occurred, to rate the emotional intensity and vividness of the event, and to report the perspective from which the memory was “seen.”

We found that, on average, people reported their first memory as occurring during the first half of their third year of life (specifically, at age 3.24). This aligns with other studies that have investigated the age of early memories.

What does this mean for my memories from infancy? Perhaps I simply have an excellent memory and can recall the early months of my life. Indeed, in our study, we found that around 40% of participants reported remembering events from the age of two or younger—and 14% recalled memories from the age of one or younger. However, psychological research indicates that memories formed before the age of three are highly unusual—and, in fact, highly unlikely.

The Origins of Memory

Researchers investigating memory development have shown that the neurological processes required to form personal memories do not fully develop until between the ages of three and four. Other studies suggest a link between memory and language development. Language enables children to share and discuss the past with others, allowing memories to be organized into a personal autobiography.

So, how can I remember my infancy? And why did 2,748 people in our study recall events from when they were two years old or younger?

One explanation is that people misestimate their age when recalling these events. Ultimately, without corroborating evidence, we are merely guessing our age for memories spanning our entire lives, including the earliest ones.

However, if misestimation of age explained the existence of these memories, we would expect them to resemble memories from age three onwards. Yet, that is not the case—we found that the reported very early memories involved events and objects from infancy (prams, cribs, learning to walk), whereas memories from older ages centered on typical childhood experiences (toys, school, holidays). These findings indicate that the two groups of memories are qualitatively different, thereby ruling out the misestimation explanation.

If research suggests these early memories are highly improbable, and we have dismissed the misestimation theory, why do people—myself included—possess them?

Are they purely fictional?

We concluded that these memories are likely fictional—meaning they never actually occurred. Perhaps, rather than recalling an event we personally experienced, we are recalling images from photographs, home movies, family stories, or events and activities that frequently took place during infancy. We hypothesize that these facts become linked with fragmented visual images and combine to form the basis of these fictional early memories. Over time, this combination of images and facts comes to be experienced as a genuine memory.

Although 40% of the participants in our study reported such fictional memories, this is not at all surprising. Contemporary memory theory highlights the constructive nature of memory; memories are not mere “records” of events but psychological representations of the self in the past.

In other words, all our memories contain some element of fiction—indeed, this is a sign of a healthy memory system functioning correctly. Yet, perhaps for reasons yet unknown, we harbor a psychological need to fabricate memories regarding periods of our lives we cannot actually recall. For now, the nature of these “stories” remains a mystery.