Thursday, July 19, 2018
Constants and variables 100, Lassie edition
Another non-informational piece of "information".
Current research indicates that people's earliest memories date from around three to three-and-a-half years of age. However, the study from researchers at City, University of London, the University of Bradford and Nottingham Trent University found that 38.6 per cent of a survey of 6,641 people claimed to have memories from two or younger, with 893 people claiming memories from one or younger. This was particularly prevalent among middle-aged and older adults.Not surprising. Many of my earliest "memories" are clearly based on stories heard from parents. There are two distinct categories. 1. Images that are known to be derived from heard stories. 2. Images that seem to be real memories. I can do a constants/variables on two closely associated incidents. According to stories, our family had a cocker spaniel named Sam when I was about 2 years old. I don't have any memories, real or fake, of Sam himself, but I have two images of incidents involving Sam. 1. Sam saved my life when I wandered away from home and got stuck in a drainage ditch. Sam ran back home and led my mother to me. I have an image of the location, but I know that the image is invented in the same way as an image based on a story in a book. It has NOT been registered as a memory. 2. Sam was killed by eating poisoned meat. I have a supposed "memory" of searching for the meat in a Safeway parking lot. This incident is firmly registered as an actual live memory. Neither incident has any chance of being an actual memory, and the temporal nearness of (1) helps to discount the "reality" of (2). Nevertheless, (2) still registers as "real".
Labels: Constants and Variables
¶ 3:27 PM
