Accuracy of Memories from Childhood and Adolescence Related to Growth and Size K. ANN COLEMAN Boston University JOHANNA T. DWYER Tufts University Medical School and USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University VIRGINIA A. CASEY Tufts University School of Nutrition and New England Research Institute The ability of middle-aged adults to recall their body size and events occurring up to 40 years earlier was assessed. Ninety-one subjects recalled their relative height, weight, and fatness during childhood, early adolescence and late adolescence. Accuracy of these memories was compared with the accuracy of current reports. The ability to accurately date benchmarks of their maturation such as menarche and year of maximal growth in height was also examined. Accuracy of reports did not decline uniformly over time. In general, reports of childhood physical characteristics were at least as accurate as reports of current characteristics; that is, they did not differ significantly from current reports. Males were less accurate in their reports of relative height and fatness during early adolescence and childhood. Memory for events occurring in the distant past is a topic which for decades re- ceived little attention within academic psychology. Within the past 20 years, however, the topic has undergone increased scrutiny and gained increased acceptability (Neisser, 1982; Rubin,1986; Neisser & Winograd, 1988). During this period psychologists have examined a wide range of remote memories including, for example, memory for names and faces from 50 years earlier (Bahrick, Bahrick, & Wittlinger, 1975), real world events (Linton, 1975) and flashbulb memories (Piilemer, 1984). Many of the remote memories studied are autobiographical in nature and relate to events that occurred during childhood or during a much earlier developmental period (Winograd & Killinger, 1983; Robins, 1985; White & Pillemer, 1989; Nelson, 1992). In contrast, memory for childhood physical characteristics has remained largely unstudied by cognitive scientists. Intuitively it would seem that the memory of one's physical appearance or perceived bodily characteristics would be of interest to psy- chologists, more than to those in other disciplines. Current Psychology: Developmental ° Learning ° Personality • Social, Fall 1994, Vol. 13, No. 3, 233-240.