# gaps in eidetic memory? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 6, 2017, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234 "2017-06-06T01:00:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234/1 "2017-06-06T01:00:51Z")
Anyone here have eidetic memory? Does “eidetic” literally mean that you can remember absolutely everything in perfect detail, or do you shed stretches of time that are of minimal interest. And is eidetic memory reliably accurate, inasmuch as we all remember things differently? Is there subjective distortion about what happened? ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234/2 "2017-06-06T01:08:27Z")
There are different forms of eidetic memory. And no, they are not absolutely perfect and have downsides. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234/3 "2017-06-06T02:35:14Z")
See the [wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory). > [@](#): > > Although the terms eidetic memory and photographic memory are popularly used interchangeably, they are also distinguished, with eidetic memory referring to the ability to view memories like photographs for a few minutes, and photographic memory referring to the ability to recall pages of text or numbers, or similar, in great detail. When the concepts are distinguished, eidetic memory is reported to occur in a small number of children and as something generally not found in adults, while **true photographic memory has never been demonstrated to exist.** ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234/4 "2017-06-06T04:10:19Z")
Eidetic just means you can take a picture of something. It can be a test-passing crutch that prevents actual learning. For instance, in junior high and high school, rather than spend time memorizing dates in history, I would simply take a picture of the timeline in the book. As a result, I got excellent test scores, but now have a very poor grasp of historical periods and what was happening around what time, in different places in the world. For the vast majority of circumstances, associative memory is by far the better strategy. And no, just because you have the ability to make a visual impression of something, does not mean that you can also remember everything, ever. Or even remember the picture you took six months later. That kind of recall is a whole other talent\*. - And sometimes curse, or so I’m told. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234/5 "2017-06-06T04:13:31Z")
I used to have that type of memory when it came to conversations, written or spoken. I could remember every word of every conversation I ever had to about age 6. I got divorced when I was 40 years old and it totally stopped happening. I am lucky to remember yesterdays conversations. For some reason I could read testimony in long transcripts and remember the entire transcript. I was like that with statistics also but that started fading by about age 14. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234/6 "2017-06-06T13:01:04Z")
True photographic memory, the sort where a person glances at a page of text and can “read” it from memory later, is certainly impossible. Leaving aside the question of whether the brain is capable of it (probably not, but then, the brain is very poorly understood, and some brains are less understood than others), the eye isn’t even capable of it. The visual acuity of the eye is not constant over the entire field of view. Only a very small region near the center is sharp enough to read normal-sized text. We read by scanning our eyes across the entire page, so that each word passes through that small, high-detail region. If you don’t do that, your brain won’t have anything to recall. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234/7 "2017-06-06T15:43:10Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > True photographic memory, the sort where a person glances at a page of text and can “read” it from memory later, is certainly impossible. . . . It’s no more impossible than that game where someone brings out a tray of objects and lets everybody look at it for a few seconds. Then folks compete to see who can write down the most objects. Some will have a list of one or two, others will have 15 or 20 objects. Some will write down associated objects which were not on the tray. There’s a very wide range of abilities in any group. I don’t do it as well as I used to, but there was a time when I could draw the tray for you. Treating a word as a visual image, then translating it, is absolutely possible. I remember a test in English class where I wrote down the page number, paragraph number, and the first sentence of the paragraph in which the answer occurred. But I couldn’t read the second sentence, where the answer was, and I couldn’t remember the answer. That teacher explained to me the difference between learning and remembering, and encouraged me to always learn. I mostly have, and my visual memory skills have reduced through age and disuse. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234/8 "2017-06-06T15:47:42Z")
**TruCelt** , did you read the rest of my post, where I explained why it’s impossible? Because the reason it’s impossible doesn’t apply to Kim’s game, because you need much less detail to identify an object than you do to read text. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaps-in-eidetic-memory/788234/9 "2017-06-06T15:47:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > True photographic memory, the sort where a person glances at a page of text and can “read” it from memory later, is certainly impossible. Leaving aside the question of whether the brain is capable of it (probably not, but then, the brain is very poorly understood, and some brains are less understood than others), the eye isn’t even capable of it. The visual acuity of the eye is not constant over the entire field of view. Only a very small region near the center is sharp enough to read normal-sized text. We read by scanning our eyes across the entire page, so that each word passes through that small, high-detail region. If you don’t do that, your brain won’t have anything to recall. Looking at this explanation: > [@](#): > > [Eidetic memory - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory) > > Eidetic memory (/aɪˈdɛtɪk/; sometimes called photographic memory) is an ability to vividly recall images from memory after only a few instances of exposure, with high precision for a brief time after exposure,[1] without using a mnemonic device.[2] Although the terms eidetic memory and photographic memory are popularly used interchangeably,[1] they are also distinguished, with eidetic memory referring to the ability to view memories like photographs for a few minutes,[3] and photographic memory referring to the ability to recall pages of text or numbers, or similar, in great detail.[4][5] When the concepts are distinguished, eidetic memory is reported to occur in a small number of children and as something generally not found in adults,[2][6] while true photographic memory has never been demonstrated to exist.[5][7] > > The word eidetic comes from the Greek word εἶδος (pronounced [êːdos], eidos, “seen”).[8] Perhaps I am talking about Eidetic, and you are talking about Photographic. I could never just take a picture of an entire page, only what was in the visual field at a glance.