Our First Memory

As we are going to start our study on the Cognitive Perspective, we are asked by our teacher Mr. Peter Anthony to think of our first memory since memory is a big part in this Cognitive Approach. After digging into my memories and some rewinding effort, I was able to come up with one memory which I believed to be my earliest. My first memory occurred around the time when I was about 3-5 years old, it is a picture of myself climbing up the 3 story shelf to get my toy car which is on the highest story of the shelf. However my attempt turns out to be a failure and I ended up falling from the shelf and hurt one of my leg when I was on the second story of the shelf. Because of the pain I started to cry and then my maid which is in the next room come rushing in and saw me on the floor crying holding on to the ankle of my leg. She quickly called my parents, and before I knew it my mom was next to me applying some liquid pain-reliever on my ankle.

After everyone in our class share their memory, we discuss about the psychological idea behind these memories. We come up with the conclusion that our earliest memory should be around 4-5 years old because our brain are not that developed when we are 3 years old to remember any exact detail of the memory therefore the memory before 4 years old should only be a reconstructed idea. We also conclude that most of the time our memory came from incident that have an emotional impact on us and what is even more interesting is the fact that half of the class’s memories are negative while the other half is positive.