April's Challenge: Down the Memory Lane

A study in University of Bradford in England memory as early as the age of 2 yrs is scientifically impossible. According to the study, @ 2nd year of human life, the ability to form memories has not yet developed.

In the study, they consider the earliest memory should be your own, not influenced by the photographs or from family stories. From these factors, they evaluated that most of repondents who claimed to have ealiest memory @ 2yrs old is fabricated.

Another research found that childhood amnesia, fading of earliest memories, occur at the age 6-8 as the brain has not yet have the ability to retain them. One study identified that plays, injuries, moving to other house or changing schools are memories that are retained until adulthood.

My Earliest Memory

Scratching the memories from photos, scars and stories of my parents and recalling back on significant event when I was young as bench mark, my earliest retained memory is way back I'm 5yrs old. The bench mark is the time when we moved to our current home, that was 2000. My father though not an engineer nor foreman build our current home and he has this trait that he would write the date of completion of construction in the slab. That is how I knew date when we moved. 

 Photo © Evelyn Simak (cc-by-sa/2.0)

From 2000 I'm recalling my memories prior to that. Unfortunately I could not recall the arrangement or the layout of our previous home. Not even the room I shared with my siblings at that time. The only thing that I remember is the adelfa plant near our gate. I remember that shrub, because at night I like staying outside smelling the fragrance coming from its flower.

Photo by: Schwoaze in Pixabay

We also used to pick this flower every Flores de Mayo thinking that Mama Mary would love the bouquet because it is fragrant. The adelfa is not my favorite flower but it has been my preference to this at home. Back when we transfered, I requested my mother to plant this shrub also near our gate. Maybe that time I unciously missed its fragrant smell at night. 

References:
https://www.livescience.com/63109-first-memory-fictional.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-power-of-the-earliest-memories-1396908675
Peterson, C., Morris, G., Baker-Ward, L., & Flynn, S. (2013). Predicting which childhood memories persist: Contributions of memory characteristics. Developmental Psychology, 50, pp. 439-448.