Interesting discussion. I'm quite confident that DS expressed a true memory because, along Howler Karma's line of reasoning:
A) We have no photos or videos of the play.
B) Because it was such an unexceptional activity, we hadn't talked about it previously. Also, we had packed the toy away in storage around 6 months.
C) DS volunteered a description of feelings of frustration and of feeling trapped in his body, something he has never expressed before, so he had attached an autobiographical narrative to the memory.
D) My father and I have similar early memories around feelings of frustration with a clear visual and emotional memory of the events; my dad at 3-4 months and me at 18 months. As an adult, I'm able to recall that incident in vivid detail.
The basis of our understanding of the brain is in its infancy. I am open to the idea that neurologists don't have a watertight grasp of the full range of the brain's capabilities, though I acknowledge that there are inherent challenges in teasing out true memory from post-hoc imagination in young children.
