What adults can actually remember from childhood and what they believe they can remember

Recent experiments have shown that children and adults remembering childhood events are particularly poor at recalling highly specific details, details often focused on by investigators, lawyers, and triers of fact, such as clothes worn, weather conditions, exact time, event duration, etc. In contrast, recent surveys of beliefs about human memory have found that large groups of adults believe memory to be analogous to photographs and to contain many highly specific details, that intense emotions lead to memories that are ‘burnt into the brain’, that memories are enduring and unchanging, and other people are able to recall memories dating to below the age of two years. The discrepancy between what can be recalled and beliefs about what can be recalled reflects widespread lack of understanding of human memory alongside powerfully held beliefs that are held unquestioningly. The consequences for judgments of human memory in formal settings, e.g. courts, are often catastrophic.

Professor Martin A. Conway: I took my first degree in Psychology at University College London and was awarded a Ph.D. from the Open University in 1984. In 1983 I joined the MRC’s Applied Psychology Unit where I worked as a post-doctoral research scientist until 1988. In 1988 I became a lecturer at the University of Lancaster. In 1993 I took up a Professorship at the University of Bristol and became Head of the Department of Erxperimental Psychology (1994-2001). I subsequently became a Professor and Head at the University of Durham (2001-2004). In 2004 I was awarded an ESRC Professorial Fellowship, which I took to the University of Leeds and later became Head of the Institute of Psychological Sciences, 2006-2011. I am currently Head of Department at City University London. I have studied human memory for over 32 years and have an international reputation for research into autobiographical memory, neuropsychology of memory, and neurological basis of memory. I am a memory expert witness and have advised in many legal cases in Crown Courts and at the Royal Courts of Appeal. I have also been consulted on cases internationally.