I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the idea after learning about the talents of this guy.
Does anyone recall a movie called The Paper Chase?
Yeah, nice movie, and…
I’m sure you’re quite right, Isamu. Whatever recall skills he had likely would have worked in concert with analytical and others to achieve a perfect gpa and #1 ranking. He probably wasn’t completely reliant upon what he referred to as a photographic memory but undoubtably at times it was of great benefit to him.
No doubt. 
And I bet he saved a small fortune on photocopying (for real!).
[moderating]
I just received a somewhat snarky PM telling me that the thread doesn’t belong in GD (where I moved it from GQ) because the existence of “photographic” memory has never been proven, “Keppra” doesn’t cause it, and the subject isn’t open to debate.
Since previous threads about photographic/eidetic memory have been in “Comments on Cecil’s Columns” (referring to this column from 2000), the person who sent the PM requested that the thread be moved there. While I don’t agree that there’s no debate to be had here, the suggestion on where to move the thread is reasonable.
Being a generally agreeable kind of guy, I have moved the thread to “Comments on Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports.”
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The study of human memory in general and visual memory in particular is a well developed area of science, and many aspects of it are well understood. Yes we almost certainly are talking about something that is inherently impossible for a human, perhaps not like flying, but more like running at 1,000 miles an hour. Do you think we need to test every person in the world’s running speed to prove that people cannot run at 1,000 m.p.h.? No, we just need to know something about how legs work, or about human physiology in general.
The only evidence there is that suggests that “photographic” memory might exist (out of many studies of people having or claiming to have unusually good memories) is the famous case of Elizabeth, which, as has been pointed out in this thread and the others I linked to, bears all the signs of being a case of scientific fraud. (One of those signs, though by no mans the only one, is that she is claimed to do something that, according to everything else we know about the brain, the eyes, and memory, is clearly impossible.)
You do not have to define it particularly strictly. You only have to define it such that “photographic” means more or less what it means in other contexts. In other words, if “photographic memory” is taken to mean what it seems to mean, then it is impossible. Only if it is redefined to mean “much better than average memory for certain types of material” (i.e., as something that implies no analogy to photography) does it become possible.
Why “photographic” rather than “good”?
Incidentally, do you have any actual evidence that anyone can quote arbitrary, lengthy passages from a book verbatim after reading it once at ‘normal’ speed? (I take it that that is what you are suggesting, because if you are talking about quoting brief passages that they get to choose, or books that they have studied repeatedly, then there is nothing particularly remarkable about it.) I do not say that is necessary humanly impossible (in the way that photographic memory is), but you do not just get to make up evidence.
[quote="Grateful-UnDead, post:18, topic:594469"]
Slightly off topic, but somewhat relevant:
I recall reading (no cite) that in Medieval times, students at the time were required to commit everything to memory.
It was considered commonplace for a scholar to be able to recall perfectly 300 lines of poetry after only one reading; equivalently, it was normal for them to recite verbatim large bodies of text.
Similar performance was "normal" in other areas of study.
I have no idea how this was done (if, in fact, what I read was true), but it does suggest that memory is an acquired and trainable ability.
[/QUOTE]
This is all true. There are a number of effective mnemonic techniques that can be learned by almost anyone, and that were widely taught and used in the middle ages and the ancient world. They have been studied experimentally and have been found to work well, although it is quite hard mental work to use them and to learn the more effective versions. They are useful for memorizing otherwise difficult to remember material such as unstructured lists of things or apparently arbitrary numbers. They are not much used today because, unlike in the middle ages, we now have easier ways of accessing such information, such as looking them up in a reference book (or, now, on a web site). Most of these techniques involve the deliberate use of visual mental imagery, but this still has nothing to do with “photographic” as opposed to *good* memory. You do not need to have particularly vivid or accurate mental imagery in order to use imagery based mnemonics effectively.
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[quote="monstro, post:21, topic:594469"]
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the idea after learning about the talents of [this](http://autisticsavant.blogspot.com/2008/04/autistic-artist-quickly-creates-perfect.html) guy.
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This guy was already discussed in one of the [other thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13980389)s on this topic that I already linked to. He is quite an impressive artist, and his drawings contain a lot of detail, but the fine details are not real details that he has remembered and reproduced, mostly they are clearly invented details that give a generally convincing impressionistic sense of the scene. In other words, he does, in his own unique style, what all artists do when drawing or painting from memory. [Look at some of his actual pictures.](http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/gallery.aspx) They are not, and clearly are not even intended to be, photorealistic, there is no hint that that he even tries to render every detail faithfully. Nor should he. He is an artist, not a camera. Is he talented? Yes. Do his works show any signs whatsoever of “photographic” memory? No. The hype around, and the suggestion that his art is the product of “special” mental abilities that other artists do not have, is simply journalistic licence and a symptom of the romanticization of autism.This article from the Daily Mail is informative. Despite the claims that he just looks at the city and memorizes it, one of the pictures accompanying the article shows him sketching London from the Millennium Wheel (they call him the “human camera” in that caption). If you look at the detail the Daily Mail included, it’s hardly what I’d call “photorealistic.”
Sure, he’s a good artist. Yes, I’m impressed by his skill. But the direct comparison of his picture with a photo shows that it isn’t perfect, and combined with the article, doesn’t indicate a “photographic” memory like his own website and blog do.
My ex sister in law had a photographic memory. She memorized Beowolf in old old English after reading it twice. Yep .it exists.
I don’t think you read this whole thread, else you would not have posted that.
I don’t claim to have a photographic memory, though some people who know me might dispute that. What I do have is a fantastic memory retrieval system. I learn thinhgs easier than most, and once something is in my brain, you can not get it out if you put a lit firecracker up my nose.
Memory is not storage–your brain stores everything automatically. It is basically retrieval. I was just born with a super retrieval system–I remember my first memory had the idea that “I can think of this later on.”
Yes, I can recall situations from ages ago and past conversations per vebatim.
You have aroused my curiosity; how would this be done?
To me it sounds pretty incredible; I have a hard enough time remembering my shopping list. But to remember 300 lines of poetry after only one reading? Pretty impressive.
Similarly, remembering unstructured lists and arbitrary numbers?
Can you describe the applicable methods?
One example I’ve heard described, you define a “memory map”. Take a place you know very well - like your childhood home, or high school, or whatever. Now assign a value to each room. 1 to the bedroom, 2 to the closet, 3 to the main bathroom, etc.
Now whenever you want to remember a list of numbers, you think of those assigned rooms as you repeat the number to yourself. You visualize the rooms with the numbers. Then when you want to recall the number, you work through the rooms.
This is my approximation of what I recall being described. YMMV.
I don’t know of any serious people who say an average person can learn to memorize a long poem at one reading, but memorizing lists, speeches, and numbers with less work and better results than most people would expect involves standard techniques that are pretty easy to learn, but take a while to describe. Harry Lorrayne wrote several very readable books on how to do it, all saying pretty much the same thing, and you can probably find some of them on Amazon or in your library. But just googling on things like mnemonic techniques, link, peg, association, numeric phonetics, etc. should also find them.
I’ve lived in the same city for over thirty years and travelled extensively by bus. I memorise phone numbers and the like as a series of two digit bus numbers. it helps to make a mental picture of a relevantly numbered bus in a particular spot but it’s not essential. It’s also a rather faulty system as not all the numbers from 10 to 100 are used by the local bus companies It started out as a by product of having learned the bus routes rather than something I was doing systematically. Once I heard about memory maps I began doing it on purpose.
ETA My pin numbers are not made of bus numbers, just in case anyone was wondering.
I do believe a few people have a photographic memory. It could be a curse of remebering things you want to forget and then again a gift at the same time. My memory varies from day to day. The best thing to do, is write things down you don’t want to forget…I am looking forward to seeing the new series on television about this subject.
[URL="Code Name Apollo by Shirley Anne Moore, published by Outskirts Press
Annie, the only time I remember things from my childhood was when it was repeated again and again…Like when I was a young child my mother would put me in a car and she would drive to Florida, this was repeated every few weeks. I wish my memory was better, you have a gift…
Let’s take the claim of your ability at face value.
A retrieval system that produces accurate results is predicated on the memory itself being written correctly. The faults and imperfections of human memory are much more complicated than perfect perception and recording marred by a faulty retrieval system. In most people, the perception and recording of the initial memory is not picture perfect.
Here’s a part of a famous psychological experiment you can take yourself, though the results will be ruined if you’re already familiar with it: selective attention test - YouTube
As a teenager, I was one in one of the early TAMS classes. Back then, I had a specific type of relatively short term memory that even my fellow TAMSters found impressive. In preparation for an exam, on one pass, I could read physics, bio, chem and math texts and be able to recall the page number the information was on. Although not verbatim, I could recall where on the page/text/paragraph the information was (ex: 5th paragraph, 3rd line down) for several days.
I often wonder how my life would have turned out if I’d made an effort to retain this ability but as I was young, I completely took it for granted. Boxing and other combat sports seemed more important and because I wasn’t a terribly good boxer, I got knocked out a couple times, concussed on several separate occasions and ate a lot of power shots to the noggin. Although I was always vaguely aware that I was gradually losing it, I just somehow ignored it. As others have pointed out, after a certain point in academic progression, it’s not about memorization anymore. Most upper level engineering/science exams in the schools/departments I ended up at were take-home, open book anyway.
There was one awful moment when I was 21 when I finally realized that my memory retention had become so awful that I couldn’t recall information I’d read several times, just minutes prior. That was the day I quit boxing. I felt like Charlie at the end of Flowers for Algernon.
My personal experience tells me that it’s possible too. I had a friend during high school who was always bunking classes, going out on parties and having some or the other fun. During exams, he would to open his book just a day before exam. And results would was always be excellent scores from all the other students in class.
You know what’s annoying? People who jump into the thread to say “yes, photographic memory is possible!” when they obviously have not read the discussion. Or maybe they just forgot what was said.