<p>Today in psychology, in response to a teacher's question "does anyone here have photographic memory?" (I'd think most teachers, given its rarity, wouldn't bother to ask) someone claimed to have one.</p>
<p>I had some doubts, but I'd be lying if I were to say envy didn't contribute to those doubts.</p>
<p>Anyone here think he or she has it, or really has it? Any alternative views (most significantly regarding whether it exists)? I'd think that it would be a tremendous aid, allowing its owners to breeze by most material.</p>
<p>I have a very good memory <em>IF</em> I want to remember the information I’m presented… I think I can encode it into my long term memory in 1-2 minutes but being relaxed and repeating it in my head/ visualizing it, etc while being relaxed. we all know emotions play a big role.</p>
<p>for example, 12 years ago, a russian guy taught me a russian phrase, yeah-teh bia lublue (I never knew how to spell it) i never even wrote it down.</p>
<p>Well it depends on how much information we’re talking about here. If you mean a few phrases, then yea why couldn’t it be done in 1-2 minutes. </p>
<p>Also keywords to point out: “if” and “alleged.” I think the ability to better memorize more interesting material is fairly standard. However, the images used to test for eidetic memory can’t be too appealing, or maybe only to the extent that the testee wants to prove that he or she indeed has an eidetic memory. </p>
<p>And “alleged,” goes without saying, since there are many alleged accounts, but their credibility is the very thing in question.</p>
<p>I have encountered two people who seem to possess this trait. One was my college stats professor who could go around the room (of 50 or so students) and recite our full names, addresses, social security numbers, and all test scores. He could perform other memory feats such as reciting articles from that morning’s NYT/WSJ. In a former life, he would have been a wonderful town crier!</p>
<p>I’m sure my Calc III professor has some sort of photographic memory (or at least freakish mind).</p>
<p>On the second day of class this pass semester he would look at you and call you by name. The only way that could possibly be done was by memorizing all of the student’s ID photos that corresponded to the class register. He had two sessions with 45 students in each class…back to back. Pretty amazing. But as the semester went along you could see this guy had an amazing mind, and rarely forgot anything (I don’t think he forgot anything that he wanted to remember).</p>
<p>Hmmm ominous run, is that different from a student who knows all his peers’ names after he concentrated during the standard introduction go-around-the-room (if it is indeed standard). </p>
<p>Reciting from the morning paper is another story altogether, if it’s done verbatim (and for the entire paper?)</p>
<p>Also, I had a brief conversation with the person who claimed to have it. She said her dad was able to look at a building for 5 seconds and tell you how many windows it has, so it might be genetic. Also, she can look at 50 pages of text for a few hours and then be able to recite it, knowing where something is on a page, where the punctuation is, and everything.</p>
<p>That seems really convenient; I mean, even if a standard study session does not last for a few hours, the main aim isn’t to be able to recite 50 pages of something either, so I’d think that having it compounded with studying (but probably a high number of times more efficiently than what average folk have) allows owners to blast right through school.</p>
<p>There are people who can remember every day of their lives. The day of the week, weather, all the specific events of the day, etc. back until their early childhood.</p>
<p>^ Flo and Kay, twin savants. They remember any day, they can tell you what day it was on any date of any year (not sure how far back this goes, if it’s even limited at all), as well as what the weather was like that day.</p>
<p>They were also obsessed with the $10,000 Pyramid game show, hosted by Dick Clark, and if I remember correctly (no pun intended), they can recall what outfit he wore on each episode of the show.</p>
<p>Supposedly I’m in the 99.9th percentile for memory, according to the IQ test I had to take a couple years back. I do have a really good memory if I do say so myself, but even then I don’t think I could call it photographic.</p>
<p>I really envy those who have such amazing talents.</p>
<p>Which IQ test was that, the one you had to take?
Can you recite pages from the dictionary? Also, is your memory’s retention permanent (or else really good?) I’m trying to get an idea of what a 99.9th percentile memory is capable of. </p>
<p>I mean I just don’t see how it’s possible to recall events that happened before they were born. I saw a TLC documentary about Rasputin whose narrator said Rasputin’s spirit arranged for punishing the Czar. It seems far more likely Rasputin prearranged it with his entourage, instructing them to do this and that if such and such were to occur.</p>
<p>I know a professor whose husband has an amazing memory (reads a book, can recall specific things within the book and find the page it was on). Is it photographic? Probably not, its just very efficient.</p>
<p>Personally, I think a lot of this has to do with familiarity… I can find text in books from having read them once, but it isn’t nearly as accurate as doing the same thing in a book I’ve read several times. For me, I think it has to do with image recall rather than pure memorization. I can remember what paintings look like, but only tell specific details of the parts of the paintings that were the most stimulating to me visually (Take Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” I remember the swirls in the sky much better than the shadowed buildings at the bottom). Further to that, if a person is more suited to numbers, they can remember them more easily than paintings and vice versa… No idea if any of this is simply coincidence or has any veracity, but it’s something I’ve observed about my own memory skills.</p>
<p>I’ve never been tested, but I think my memory is pretty good. It definitely helps in school and I probably rely on it too much instead of really learning to study. I don’t think I have a “photographic” memory, but I don’t think such things truly exist outside the realm of savants.</p>
<p>Edit to the above^ since I can no longer edit my earlier post:</p>
<p>I just re-read this thread and saw the wikipedia post, which I missed the first time around. The reason I think photographic memory doesn’t exist, is simply because of definitions (photographic in the sense of of a specific memory, its perfect recall, not recalling everything you’ve ever seen- While this (the former) is certainly possible, I don’t think it occurs outside of savants without some sort of method to memorization) and perhaps if I adjusted my definitions, more people would have this ability. But, who knows? It’s a big world.</p>