At what age do our infant memory commence?

[Roobarb]

According to both articles and others I have read previously, memories that last into adulthood only occur from the age of three, due to the development of the brain. Apparently any memories that we may think we have before that are due to such things as parents or other people talking about things that happened, or from perhaps looking at photos. We then go on to think they're actually our memories.

[Kiltpin]

There is another school of thought (no pun intended), which likens our memories to a computer file. Every time you access a file, it is changed. It is date stamped with the new access time. It is as if it is a brand-new file. This is why the police want to interview witnesses as soon as possible after an event - before they have time to think about what they have seen, and mentally edit their memory.

Memory is also a self-defence safety system - things that cause us distress or mental harm are forgotten. You can remember that you were in pain, but you cannot remember the pain itself. Contra wise, good or happy memories can be imprinted from birth. Babies might not remember what their mother looks like, but from the earliest days remember her smell. 

Regards 

Chas

[Jebber]

I remember being pushed by my mother in my pram. I also remember my second birthday, I was given a life sized baby doll. I was sitting beside the Morrison shelter in the dining room when the doll was put in my lap.

 I also remember hearing  the air raid siren and being bundled into the Morrison shelter with my grandmother, I  could have been no more than three because I was only just three when the war ended.

[Sam Swift]

I Dare say there are exceptions amongst the billion of people not studied. I have a memory of a large colourful ball rolling down a slightly sloping garden path towards a small wooden gate. We only lived in this house for a year after I was born and the house we moved to had no such garden path or gate. Maybe this memory is linked to brain development - mine that is. At 8 months I
could apparently string a few words together in short sentences such as "somebody' walking." I don't have any recollection of anything I could apparently say though and the above was all I can remember my mother telling me about. I don't think scientists fully understand how brains work.

[louisa maud]

I can remember being in a pram with my brother with a well  in  the centre where we could put our feet in as we grew, not for long as we had a doub,e push chair,  I also think i remember  black out curtains, I can remember my first day's at school, remember the teacher and 1 lad, Ernest Herring, why I should remember him I don't know
LM

[pwhhh]

Aged 2, I remember moving house, and the car we left in (my grandfather's, as we didn't have one), and later the same year my mother bringing home my baby brother from maternity hospital.
First few weeks at school, a little girl asking me why I wrote/drew with my left hand - I didn't, she was sitting opposite me!

[MollyC]

A little bit older, aged not quite six, I unconsciously memorised a telephone number in French, but I did not learn any French until I was 11.  My sister aged 18 was spending two months in Paris staying with a family and studying the language.  My family telephoned her, only a few times, which involved going through an operator in Paris and giving the number in French.  I listened.

Decades later she was speaking about her time there and the house where she stayed, then I said "And the phone number was Wagram trente-quatre soixante dix-sept".  My family was stunned!

[ThrelfallYorky]

Like many others I recall being in a dark blue pram, on a cold wet dark evening, facing my mother, who was pushing it, but there was a dark blue lined with cream shiny apron thing protecting me from the rain, which was pouring down. She was wet-haired, I was nice and dry. I could see a few street lights, far below, from the raised road we were on. Otherwise it was dark, and she was out of breath pushing me up a steep, bumpy road.
She got rid of that particular pram ( Tan -Sad) she identified it as, shortly after my second birthday, passing it on to her sister, who had just given birth to my eldest cousin, but it was before Christmas that year. That's the earliest I can firmly pin.
TY

[brigidmac]

Molly C
I M very impressed by that .
In the early 1960's my father learnt German using  an audio method

my sisters + 1 aged about 3 5 and under 7 Learnt

"Um de ecker"
&
Klaus das is nicht viktic ( spelling)

2 sentences that stood out for us

Meaning
 "round the corner "
The second was in answer to the question " is she pretty ?" + Was said indignantly
"Klaus that isn't important " !

My french penfriend+ I met when I was eleven . I'd stay with her family for a month every other year til I was 19 & Stayed in touch
Their phone number had a 3 digit sequence that was the same as my home number.
20 years later on an unplanned trip to Paris I managed to dig the whole number from memory
(not sure how many digits )
But in English not french

I've had my current mobile phone for at least 8 years and still don't know the number !
Memory is indeed variable