Exceptional memory
Exceptional memory is the ability to have accurate and detailed recall in a variety of ways, including hyperthymesia, eidetic memory, synesthesia, and emotional memory. Exceptional memory is also prevalent in those with savant syndrome and mnemonists.
Hyperthymesia
Hyperthymesia, or hyperthymestic syndrome, is superior autobiographical memory, the type of memory that forms people's life stories. The term hyperthymesia is derived from the Modern Greek word thýmesē 'memory' and Ancient Greek hypér 'over'.The capabilities of the affected individuals are not limited to recalling specific events from their personal experience. Hyperthymesia has both enhanced autobiographical and episodic memory. There is an important characteristic of hyperthymesia: People with the syndrome have an unusual form of eidetic memory to remember as well as recall any specific personal events or trivial details, including a date, the weather, what people wore on that day, from their past, almost in an organized manner.
Unlike other people with advanced memory abilities, such as savant syndrome, individuals with hyperthymestic syndrome rely heavily on their personal "mental calendar", which is an automatic and obsessive process. Moreover, individuals with hyperthymesia do not focus on practiced mnemonic strategies. For example, "AJ", who has the first documented case of hyperthymesia, has difficulty consciously applying her memory strategies to help her memorize new knowledge, making her rote memorization abilities below average. Importantly, having superior autobiographical memory does not translate to broadly superior memory; in fact across tests like a digit span, visual reproduction, and word-pair memorization, those with hyperthymesia have no statistically significant difference from a control group.
Neuroscience
Because it is a recently discovered memory capability, neuroscientific explanations of hyperthymesia are scarce. McGaugh, who coined the term, provides mostly speculation in "A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering". He suggests that "AJ"'s superior autobiographical memory is largely the result of specific impairments rather than enhancements. Her sensitivity to cues that trigger her memories suggest that "AJ" has trouble inhibiting episodic-retrieval mode, which is the neurocognitive state required for present stimuli to be interpreted as memory cues. Because she is unable to "turn off" her retrieval mode, the smallest associations may bring on detailed recollections of "AJ"'s past.Inhibition in itself is a type of executive functioning, thought to be associated with the right inferior frontal cortex. Although "AJ" is not autistic, McGaugh and colleagues note that she shares some of the executive-functioning deficits that occur with autism. These deficits, along with anomalous lateralization and "AJ"'s obsessive–compulsive tendencies, point to a neurodevelopmental frontostriatal disorder common in autism, OCD, ADHD, Tourette's syndrome, and schizophrenia. The frontostriatal system is made up of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, cingulate, supplementary motor area, and associated basal ganglia structures.
Cases
there are an estimated 61 confirmed cases of hyperthymesia worldwide. Cases of hyperthymesia differ from related cases of savant memory in that savants have an extraordinary memory for specific hobbies, and events of a narrow basis, whereas cases of confirmed hyperthymesia show surprisingly detailed memory for specific and general events.One subject, given any date in history, can recall what the weather was like on said date, personal details of their life at the time, and other news events that occurred at that time. Details of what the subject recalls may be significant to them in some way, but they may not be. Personal meaning does not seem to affect the subject's memory – they simply recall everything. In another confirmed case, the subject, when shown a photograph from his past, can recall the date it was taken, where it was taken, what they had done that day, and even more detailed information such as the temperature on said day.
Drawbacks
While many would consider hyperthymesia a positive trait, those with hyperthymesia also describe experiencing negative consequences of their enhanced memory. For example, one individual describes their memory as a "running movie that never stops". Furthermore, they describe viewing the world in "split screen", with the past constantly playing at the same time as the present. Similarly, the individual's superior memory does not seem to be due to a desire to apply memorizing techniques; their memorization of autobiographical information is non-conscious. Another negative aspect of hyperthymesia is that it could possibly stem from traumatic experiences in childhood in which the individual feels a need to organize memories, relive the past, and otherwise think about previous experiences more. One with exceptional memory can also recall unwanted events in great detail, such as being able to relive past traumatic events in their life, which can enhance the effects of the trauma.Eidetic memory
Eidetic memory, or total recall, is the accurate recall of images, sounds, and objects in a seemingly unlimited volume. Eidetic means "marked by an extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall of visual images". The term eidetic memory can become more clinical when the memory experts use the picture-elicitation method to detect the ability. In the picture elicitation method, children are asked to study an image for approximately twenty to thirty minutes, and then the researchers remove the picture, it has been found that children with such ability are able to recall the image with perfect accuracy after the picture has been removed. It has been suggested that children with eidetic memory can maintain the image in their memory as vividly as if it were still there.There are reports of different forms of eidetic memory and new case studies that suggest a difference between photographic and eidetic memory, although not enough scientific data have been gathered. Public documents from the APA, Yale, and Harvard suggest otherwise and that more studies are being done to stimulate the differences; all current noted forms of memory are open to the public but not meant to discriminate against the hypothesis of new types. Older studies claimed to have observed a variety of drawbacks among those who have an apparent eidetic memory. Eidetic imagery can be so vivid as to mimic actual perception of stimuli, which can be much like a hallucination. Some researchers of eidetic imagery have proposed a link between this ability and psychosis, such as in schizophrenic populations.
Criticism
argued in his book The Society of Mind that the reported cases of eidetic memory should be considered as "unfounded myth". This view was supported by an experimental study conducted by psychologist Adriaan de Groot. The experiment was intended to investigate chess grandmasters' ability to memorize positions of chess pieces on a chessboard. When those chess experts were provided with arrangements that were inconsistent with a real chess game, their performance was about the same as non-experts. These results indicate that the eidetic ability of those chess grandmasters were not innate, but a learned strategy with certain types of information. Wilding and Valentine searched for people claiming to have an eidetic or otherwise superior memory via public media. Out of the 31 people who called in, only three actually had a significantly above-average but not eidetic memory.Further cause for skepticism is given by a non-scientific event: The World Memory Championships. Held since 1991, this is an annual competition in different memory disciplines and is nearly totally based on visual tasks – nine out of ten events are displayed visually, the tenth event is presented by audio. Since the champions can win interesting prizes, it should attract people who can beat those tests easily by reproducing visual images of the presented material during the recall. But indeed, not a single memory champion has ever been reported to have an eidetic memory. Instead, without a single exception, all winners consider themselves mnemonists and rely on using mnemonic strategies, mostly the method of loci.
Cases
have been reported for generations, with a 1970 study on a woman being called the most convincing documentation yet. Her memory was extraordinary in that she could see an image once and retain it in memory for years to come. The classic study of the subject's memory documents her writing out poetry in a foreign language, of which she had no prior knowledge, years after seeing the original text. This suggests that her memory retained the image of the foreign words vividly enough to recall years later. Reports also suggest that her memory was so vivid that she could obscure other parts of the present visual field with these memories.However, this subject remains the only person to have passed such a test, and the credibility of the findings are highly questionable, given that the researcher married his subject, and the tests have never been repeated. The study fueled strong skepticism about studies of eidetic memory for several decades thereafter. Recently there has been a renewal of interest in the area, with more careful controls, and far less spectacular results. Supposedly Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann could recite exactly word for word any books he had read, including page numbers and footnotes – even those of books he had read decades earlier.
Franco Magnani is a memory artist. Magnani was born in Pontito in 1934. Pontito is a small town in the hills of Tuscany which had a population of 500 people before the Second World War, which decreased to just 70 people, made up of the elderly and retirees, following the war. The small town fell into disarray when the agrarian economy had dwindled. In 1965, this prompted the thirty-one year old Magnani to leave his childhood home of Pontito, a decision which was deeply troubling as he had decided not to return. After making his decision, Magnani became very ill. It is unclear what this illness was exactly but, symptoms included high fever, weight loss, delirium, and possibly even seizures. For this, Magnani was placed into a sanatorium. Here he had vivid dreams of his hometown, not of his family or friends or even of events, but of the town itself. According to Magnani, the dreams were in a detail beyond anything he could consciously imagine.
After getting released from the hospital, Franco Magnani considered, but ultimately rejected medical possibilities that were suggested. These possibilities included some sort of freudian splitting of the ego which could have resulted in hypermnesia hysteria. While Magnani rejected these notions, he never allowed them to be properly explored. Once relocating to San Francisco, Magnani picked up painting, which he had no formal training in. His first painting was of his childhood home in Pontito. Magnani painted the house in remarkable accuracy, so much so that he himself was amazed. This was especially surprising considering the fact that at this point, Magnani had not been to Pontito in over 25 years. Over time, he grew an obsession with painting the town in which he had grown up in; as famed psychologist Oliver Sacks noted in 1987, Magnini seemed "possessed".
That same year, photographer Susan Schwartzenberg went to Pontito to photograph the scenes of many of Magnani's paintings. This was done as part of a study to document the astonishing accuracy of the artist's work. This study would be revealed in an art exhibit on memory in 1988. This garnered much attention by researchers such as Bob Miller, who suggested that this work could reveal the accuracy, distortions, and inventions of Magnani's memory. These photographs showed something interesting about Magnani's work that was not previously evident. The Exploratorium, which hosted the exhibit for which Schwartzenberg took photos for, explains this observation while examining a drawing of a church. "This drawing, looking down from a point high above the path approaching the church, shows a view that Magnani could never have seen." Work done by Baddley and Hitch in 1974 showed the importance of the visuospatial sketchpad in their model of working memory. The VSS stores visual and spatial information as part of short-term memory, which is used in working memory for problem solving. This is miraculous due to the fact that Magnani imagined and painted, with incredible accuracy, perspectives that he couldn't have possibly ever seen. His visual sensory information was stored long-term, which he was able to recall more than a quarter of a century later in intricate detail. This prompted praise from Sacks, stating that this rare phenomenon made him an eidetic artist. Sacks went on to say: "he could seemingly reproduce with almost photographic accuracy every building, every street, every stone of Pontito, far away, close up, from any possible angle."