Early Memories are Only Fragments but Make Life More Comprehensible or Enhance Social Solidarity and are Frequently Verbalizable

Abstract

Recollections of a very first memory by 58 students indicated that for 53% the memory helped understand later events, as Winograd suggested, and 52% of memory sharing increased social solidarity, as Nelson suggested. First memories reflected basic orientations as described by Erikson and not yet complex aspects of lifestyle as Adler believed. Students reported that 86% of memories were nonverbal but 62% could be verbalized well. Only 12% believed their first memory to reflect a complete event, and only 41% believed their recall to be completely accurate. When asked to recall more from the same early period, 36% could recall one more memory and 41% could recall two more.