the sibling birth and hospitalization and three for the death and move. They also found no sex differences for the data as proposed by some earlier experiments (Dudycha & Dudycha, 1941). The memories were verified by the participants mothers and judged as mostly accurate. These results suggest that the earliest memory recalled in adulthood will vary depending on the significance and or understanding of the event. The birth of a sibling is especially relevant for a young child because of all the discussion and anticipation preceding the birth. This event usually includes many changes in the everyday life for the child and is therefore more likely to be remembered. In comparison, a death is not well understood by a young child and usually will not be as easy to remember. The high levels of emotion (and pain) are said to account for the preservation of the hospitalization memories. This study has been cited as showing evidence for adult memory for events that occurred at the age of two, which is earlier than previous studies suggested. The evidence presented in this study must be carefully considered before making any conclusions. The number of participants who responded positively to the sibling birth questions was few and many were unverified. It has been suggested that they also may have used family knowledge to aid their recall as well as the limited range of possible answers to the questions. For example, a question asked what the baby was doing when you first saw him or her and most people know that newborns spend most of their time sleeping, eating or crying. Eacott and Crawley (1998) implemented a study that improves on some of the weaknesses from Usher and Neissers experiment. They felt it was important to factor out the family knowledge and use a larger number of respondents in order to get a better representation of the age at which we retain our first memories. To account for the family knowledge, Eacott and Craw...
