Early childhood amnesia: a quantitative study with implications for the study of retrograde amnesia after brain injury.

Measurement of retrieval of episodic memories ascribed to the various years of early childhood was made over a three-month period of search by 17 normal young adults. The distribution of episodes ascribed to various ages is described, and it is shown that the recovery of memory from early childhood tends to show features of shrinking retrograde amnesia. Methods which were used to recover very early episodes are described, and implications for the study of shrinking retrograde amnesia in brain-damaged patients are discussed.