Thoughts on Reincarnation and Past Life Recall

I've been considering research done on children giving details about previous lives. Most of the research, conducted meticulously, was done by a Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virgina who, between 1957 and 2006 documented 2500 accounts of children between the ages of 2 and 5 giving details about a past life which they couldn't possibly have known. Where possible, Dr. Stevenson located the previous deceased person and identified them from the information the children provided. Of all of these, they all gave information about people who had died within 100 years of their birth. Some of them were relatives, some were not. Many carried birthmarks or physical deformities which matched wounds the deceased had upon death.
     If I understand correctly, those they were able to give the clearest identifying details were of the same language and culture as the deceased. There was one I had read about that, while not giving many details of a past life, was able to pick up and use Russian quickly as though it was their native tongue, even though it wasn't.
     This information tends to support my hypothesis that the wider the separation between the language and culture of different incarnations, the less that person will be able to recall, if anything, except perhaps feelings and emotions which they won't be able to place.
     For most people, conscious memory tends to start around three or four years old and is coincident with the acquisition of one's first language. It is my thought that the brain depends on symbols in order to process sensory information and be able to describe it. These symbols are provided through verbal and written language. Prior to the development of language, all appears to be emotion and feelings. Given this, it then would follow that if a past incarnation had spoken a different mother tongue, and been from a different culture altogether, it would have processed and understood that information with a different set of symbols altogether. Language is a moving target in terms of translation, especially with abstract concepts.
     So, while a child or even adult who is raised in a similar language and environment to the previous incarnation might be able to remember some sensory and symbolic details about that past life, the person who is raised in a linguistic and cultural environment foreign to the past life will be able to recall none of it consciously except perhaps for feelings and emotions they cannot place. This is similar to a person trying to remember events from prior to their development of language. It is more often than not that they will be affected by subconscious memories and emotions, maybe flashes of images which they can't place or explain, but nothing which makes any sense to them and which they can articulate.