Research shows that adopting a childlike facial expression can make adults feel more connected to their childhood experiences.
New research suggests that temporarily changing how people perceive their own bodies can help them recall personal memories, potentially even those from their earliest years of life.
The study is the first to show that adults can retrieve more early-life memories after viewing and embodying a version of their own face that has been digitally transformed to look like their childhood self.
The experiment, led by neuroscientists in Cambridge, involved 50 adult participants and used a technique called the “enfacement illusion.” This method allows individuals to perceive a face displayed on a computer screen as their own reflection.
Participants were shown a live video feed of their face that had been digitally altered with an image filter to resemble how they might have looked as children. As they moved their heads, the modified face mirrored their movements in real time, reinforcing the illusion that the childlike face belonged to them.
A control group experienced the same setup but viewed their unaltered adult faces.The researchers then analyzed how much detail participants provided when describing their episodic autobiographical memories—the type of memory that allows people to mentally relive personal experiences and “travel back in time” to specific moments in their past.
The results revealed that changes in bodily self-perception can influence how easily individuals access distant memories. Participants who viewed the childlike version of their face recalled significantly more detailed childhood memories than those who saw their current adult face.
