There are several actual types of extreme memory conditions, and we want to avoid confusing them all together. Eidetic memories do seem to be a real phenomenon, while the superpower-style photographic memory appears to be nothing more than an urban legend.īut before we look at these in more detail, let's talk about what it is not. Paradoxically, it's an eidetic memory that has the ability to recall mental images in photographic detail, whereas a photographic memory isn't about images so much as it is about long numbers and passages of text. There are two versions of this: photographic memory, and what we call eidetic memory. This is the version of "photographic memory" that so many of us grew up believing in: the superpower version. They are not otherwise developmentally disabled, and haven't had to trade other cognitive or behavioral functioning. What makes this such a great thing is that it doesn't seem to come with any cost. They can, at will, call to mind the page of a book they've read, a license plate they saw, a long string of numbers, what have you and simply read it off that image in their mind's eye as if they're seeing it live. Some do, and we'll talk about those but what we want to focus on today is the idea that some people have the pop-culture version of a "photographic memory" that we've all heard about, which sounds a bit like a superpower. That's not to say that nobody has extraordinary or unusual memory prowess. Well how would you feel if I told you that there might not be any such thing as those abilities? Then by the time you got older, you'd heard of people with savantism, and champions in memory contests, and people who could remember every day of their lives and you probably wished that you too could have a photographic or eidetic memory. Remember when you were a kid and there was always someone in your class who claimed to have a photographic memory? If you believed it, as many children tend to do, you were probably both impressed and jealous.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |