How old do you remember yourself from? Scientists have named the exact number

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A new study shows that on average, the oldest memories people can recall date back to when they were just two and a half years old.

The results challenge previous findings about the average age of the earliest memories by a full year.

They are presented in a new 21-year study that is an extension of a review of existing data.

“When the earliest memory emerges, it is more of a moving target than a single static memory,” explains childhood amnesia expert and lead author Dr. Carol Peterson of Memorial University of Newfoundland.

So what many people give when asked about their earliest memory is not a boundary or the beginning of a watershed beyond which there are no memories. Rather, there seems to be a pool of potential memories from which both adults and children draw.

“And we think that people from the age of two remember a lot that they don’t realize they have. For two reasons.

First, it’s very easy to get people to recall earlier memories simply by asking them what their earliest memories are, and then asking them a few more. Then they start recalling even earlier memories—sometimes up to a full year earlier. It’s like priming a pump: once you start it, it resets itself.

Second, we’ve documented that these early memories are systematically misdated. “Time and again, we find that people think they were older than they actually were in their earliest memories.” For more than 20 years, Dr. Peterson has conducted memory research, paying particular attention to the ability of children and adults to remember their earliest years. Children's earliest memories appear earlier than they think they did, as confirmed by their parents.