Photographic Memory
Eidetic imagery is extremely uncommon. When found, it is usually in children. Less than 5 to 10 percent of children have eidetic imagery and even fewer retain it beyond adolescence.
Eidetic imagery is different from photographic memory in several ways:
- The picture fades away within a few minutes.
- The picture is not perfect: the viewer may add, omit, or distort portions of the picture. It is not an objective reproduction as one a camera would produce.
- The person must scan the picture for several seconds. The picture is not gathered in an instant.
- The pictures cannot be retrieved once they have faded. Therefore, eidetic images cannot improve long-term memory.
Some people do seem to have memories without the limitations mentioned above. A 23 year old woman was said to be able to look at a page of poetry in a foreign language and then repeat it years later, word-for-word, either forward or backward! She could keep a pattern of 10,000 black-and-white squares in her mind for3 months! She too, required time to scan the pattern.
Memory Notes: Good Memory
GOOD MEMORY
photographic memory - supposedly works like camera taking picture not really existent (Loftus, 1990 p.393)
eidetic imagery - picture remains in mind briefly after scene disappeared, but may be inaccurate, fades quickly. 5-10% of all children have it, and most lose it as they grow up. (Loftus, 1990.p.393)
About 5% of American children have eidetic memory. (Yount, p,. 72)
Eidetic is greek for image. (Rupp, 1998, p. 63)
In the 1960s, Ralph Haber of University of Rochester "screened" five hundered children seven to eleven years old for eidetic memories. Each child was shown a picture of Alice from Alice of Wonerland looking up at the Chesire cat in a tree. After thirty seconds, the picture was taken away and the children were asked to look at a blonk, gray card and describe any lasting image. Twenty children, four percent,were able to see the image so clearly that they oculd count the stripes on the Chesire Cat's tail, the flower stem's leaves, and the tree's branches. These children could also memorize photographs so that they could later count the stipes on a zeebra or spell out unfamiliar foreign words forwards or backwards!! (Rupp, 1998, p. 58)
"rare and highly accurate memory ability in which a long-term memory can be remembered with as much detail as a sensory image" (Benjamin, Hopkins, & Nation, 1994 p.268) German scientists first (Haber & Haber, 1964), later found decreased from ages 5-13 (Richardson & Harris, 1986), difficult to duplicate research (Lieblich, 1979), controversial if exists & how it occurs & why it declines early in age
"usually found in children, who sometimes project the image so completely that they can spell out an entire page of writing in an unfamiliar language that they have seen for a short time." ("Memory (mental process)" 2000)
1920s - "S." newspaper reporter in his 20s, Moscow; scolded by editor for not taking notes, repeated entire meeting verbatim, tested, no limit found; memorized thousands of table of random data, and even years later could recall any particular one - doesn't notice arrangement, doesn't see patterns unless pointed out to him; couldn't make sense of poetry, prose, law, or remember people's faces, "'They're so changeable,' he complained to his chronicler, the great Russian psychologist A.R. Luria. 'A person's expression depends on his mood and on the circumstances under which you happen to meet him. People's faces are constantly changing; it's the different shades of expression that confuse me and make it so hard to remember faces.'" [Shenk, 2000]
Shereshevsky was a Russian journalist with an incredible memory. He never took notes during his interviews, but his articles were detailed and accurate. He told his editor that he didn't need to take notes, because he never forgot anything. His editor sent him to Aleksander Luria, who studied this man wiht a remarkable memory. He remembered every list of words Luria asked him to memorize. Not only this, he remembered them years afterwards ... as well as the clothes Luria had worn on the day he had first learned them! Unfortunately, his gift was not all welcome. He was unable to block unwanted memories. Also, he had trouble with abstract or figurative language, such as the concept of "weighing words". (Yount, p. 74)
"He was, metaphorically speaking, a memory molecule maker, rather than a constellations. He recorded only information, and was bereft of the essential ability to draw meaning out of events." [Shenk, 2000]
