Remember when? The retrieval of early childhood memories in black and white American young adults.

Abstract

Culture and gender influence adults' ability to retrieve early memories. Previous research has mainly focused on White and Asian samples, leaving Black Americans understudied despite distinctive socialisation practices that could influence memory retrieval within and across gender. This study examined memory retrieval in Black (n = 97, 67% female) and White (n = 98, 77% female) participants (M_age = 21.65 years). Participants were given five minutes to recall memories from their first five years. They then estimated their age at each event and rated the memories on various dimensions. We hypothesised that Black participants and women would retrieve more and earlier memories and rate them as more robust but less independently remembered, with more pronounced gender differences in the White sample. Results partially supported our hypotheses. Black participants recalled more memories, marginally earlier first memories, and rated their memories as more important and independently remembered than White participants. White men reported the lowest scores for memory rehearsal and vividness. These patterns also varied by memory age. This study is the first to compare early memory retrieval between Black and White Americans using a memory fluency task, revealing previously undocumented autobiographical memory differences.