Comments on: 4 People With Super Memory

By: john

john — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:13:26 +0000

I discoved I had this couple of years ago, just need to no do people with this
skill feel there age means nothing, and
found they feel and act a lot younged then they are?

By: Michael DesJardins

Michael DesJardins — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 02:33:14 +0000

Having read this article I can say that I have some of the same effects as those mentioned above. I took a B12 supplement for about 2 years and realized that I could remember things as far back as 1966 when I learned to read at the age of 2, by watching the TV news, and reading newspapers with my grandmother. I’ve memorized many mathematical formulae that I haven’t used for 30 years, since high school, and I don’t use them at all anymore.

By: Christy Nini

Christy Nini — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:18:21 +0000

To: BioloBri

Thanks for your response.

In your words: “Finally, the super memory storage is considered a problem by the people who experience this because they cannot easily forget even the most painful memories. Havenâ€™t you ever wanted to just forget something happened? For the rest of their lives these people remember those events (and every other event) so clear itâ€™s as if it just happened.”

I understand how failure to “erase” certain memories can be a problem. For us, do we really forget our painful memories? Or, do we bury it in our subconscious only to discover we never really forgot it because we discovered an event that “triggered” an emotional response from our painful past?

If the 4 people in reference are not “the norm”, is it possible to create a system for them to cope with painful memories? We, “the norm”, can’t tell them “just forget about it.” The study shows that they “can’t forget”, so what “can” they do to healthily respond to their painful memories?

By: BioloBri

BioloBri — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:33:19 +0000

@ Christy Nin:
Memory is related to OCD in that it is a compulsion for some of them to record and/or review the events of their day, week, month, etc. over and over. The same part of the brain is believed to be involved.

These people are exceptional cases and not the norm. Normal human aging often comes with memory loss. Most people store memories not as a static image or series of images (like a film reel) but as a series of connections. Memory for most of us is fluid and ever-changing, which is why 2 people standing next to each other experiencing the same event can recall very different things years later when they attempt to access that memory. Memories additionally can be influenced by the words one uses to trigger the memory. (Asking, “how fast was the car going before it crashed/bumped/collided/hit/etc the other car” will yield very different responses) This contributes to memory problems in aging (though it is certainly more than that, having a lot to do with tissue degradation and an loss of ability to store new memories

Finally, the super memory storage is considered a problem by the people who experience this because they cannot easily forget even the most painful memories. Haven’t you ever wanted to just forget something happened? For the rest of their lives these people remember those events (and every other event) so clear it’s as if it just happened.

By: MeNotYou

MeNotYou — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:12:20 +0000

No Kim Peek the inspiration for the movie “Rain Man”? BAH!

By: Sara in AL

Sara in AL — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:15 +0000

This would SO be a gift to me! My memory sucks!

By: jellyfish

jellyfish — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:20:37 +0000

BioloBri is correct about Jill Price. Her “gift” was debunked a few months ago in Wired Magazine. She has an extreme form of OCD that causes her to rehash her life experiences during every waking moment of her life. Of course she remembers what she did 10 years ago on a particular day. She reviews her diaries compulsively and obsessively repeats her experiences in her mind’s eye over and over and over.

By: TheBear

TheBear — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:52:47 +0000

I believe this has something to do with the ability to organize events into a sequence, which they can quickly scan through, which is the way that most of memorize things most efficiently.

Think about it. I doesn’t take any special ability for people to memorize every single word to dozens of their favourite songs, because they’ve memorized the sequence. If you say, “quick what’s the 10th word of the 3rd verse”, the only way they could answer that is to sing the song in their head.

Similarly with language. The easiest thing to learn in any language is counting to 10, because the sequence stays in your memory. Picking out a number at random is a little harder to do.

This is a great trick for taking memorization tests by the way. Find a meaningfull sequence for the answers and you’ll do great.

By: Christy Nini

Christy Nini — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:29:52 +0000

Isn’t that why people were trying to create computers? I thought scientists needed ways to store reliable information and produce effective feedback from it. But if a human can do what a machine can do then… the human is not a human? But isn’t Artifical Intelligence modeled after Natural Intelligence?
This is my first time learning about the people and their experiences. As for Mr. Baron.. if he likes to organize and catalog, he’d be a great librarian cataloger. Seriously. I hope he likes dewey and the LCC.
And how is being good at “memory” a sign of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? If anything, the older people become, we worry about their “memory”.. yet, these people have some really good memories, and we complain how our machine computers always need upgrading and increase in memory space.
Who thinks those people are “problematic”? I think it’s amazing. They do something I can’t do.

By: Nerak

Nerak — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:25:14 +0000

Also amazing are the Rain Man twins, Flo and Kay.

They remember every detail of their lives. Given a specific date they can recall what they ate, the weather, what Dick Clark wore on American Bandstand that day!

When given a song they can say the artist, the date it was released and what day of the week it was.

There was a TV documentary done on them (Discovery, I think). It is also on YouTube separated into 6 parts.