ABSTRACT
The idea that most of us have far fiercer mental Ayahs who actively censor our memories of childhood pain is topical because of legal confrontations between agonised adults who claim to have 'recovered' repressed memories of parental abuse that is desperately repudiated by their distraught families. A different explanation, at the level of actions and behaviour rather than of neurones and neurophysiology, is that the ability to recognise something and to be able to recall it is different from the ability to tell others about it. Wang Qui illustrated this by comparing childhood memories reported by Caucasian Americans and Chinese Americans. Chinese earliest memories were, on average, about 6 months later than Caucasian. In a later study, she watched Chinese and Caucasian mothers interact with their young children. Caucasian mothers intensively involved themselves with their children to construct elaborate joint memories.
