The eidetic memory , photographic memory , or absolute memory , is faculty to remember a great quantity of images, sounds, or objects in their least details.

One finds also the orthography memory eidetic .

One says that many known artists and type-setters probably have an eidetic memory, like Claude Monet, or--> Mozart. It is however possible that their mnemic faculties are due to an intense drive in their respective artistic fields, since they devoted to it a broad portion of their time of day before. That could thus give an account of these astonishing aptitudes.

The eidetic memory is not to confuse with the Hypermnésie which is a pathology.

Discusses

Does the eidetic memory exist? If so, is it innate or acquired?

Marvin Minsky, in its book the company of the spirit (sections 15.3 and 15.6), regards the eidetic memory as a legend and a myth without base.

Adriaan de Groot brought elements in favor of the Mythe. Indeed, it undertook an experiment on the capacity of great champions of failures to memorize complex positions of parts on a play. He initially discovered that these experts were able to remember surprising quantities of information, enormously more than in the case of amateurs, which could let think of eidetic capacities. However, after it had presented to the experts provisions of parts which could not in no case to occur at the time of a true part, the precision of their memories was similar to that of the amateurs. That meant that the champions had developed a capacity to organize certain types of information rather than to be holders of an innate eidetic capacity.

People rather allot the exceptional prowesses of the memory to advanced techniques of memorizing than to any form of innate difference in the brain. Always it is that several studies leave think that the eidetic memory is a real phenomenon. Charles Stromeyer studied in 1970 Elizabeth, artist and teaching with Harvard, which could remember several years later a poem that she saw for the first time and writing in a foreign language that she did not know; it was also able to say the differences between two made grids of thousand black and white random points, while having memorized the first and while comparing with that which it had under the eyes. Alexandre Louria studied the remarkable case of Solomon Veniaminovitch Shereshevsky (more known under the name " Veniamin"). It could inter alia memorizing lists of various types (numbers, words, objects,…) and to remember tens of years perfectly it later. It used for that the process Mnémotechnique of the places. Louria ended up discovering that Veniamin also suffered from Synesthésie.

The Guinness Book of the records list people equipped with extraordinary memories. For example, on October 3rd, 2006, and during more than 16 hours, Japanese named Akira Haraguchi recited of memory the first 100.000 decimals of pi but was not approved yet like official record, and the November 3rd 1994, Tom Groves memorized in the order one pack of 52 cards beaten in 42,01 second S. the authors of the Guinness book of the records, the twins Norris and Ross McWhirter, also had an extraordinary memory since they could remember any entry of the book on request, and did it every week while answering questions of the spectators about the English emission Record Breakers.

It is said that the Mathématicien John von Neumann had an absolute memory, just as Henri Poincaré (according to a biography). Stu Ungar, one of the best players of Poker and Gin rami in the world, had a gift similar (and profitable), just like the genius of the failures, Bobby Fischer.

Cases were reported where young people Enfant S expressed the capacity to concentrate on an image and then to remember it with a perfect clearness a few minutes later. However, these aptitudes generally disappear when they grow.

Some autistic, and related like the Syndrome To sprinkle, shows an extraordinary memory. The autistic scientists are rare, but they have inter alia a spectacular memory. A notable example is Kim Peek, which can remember contents of 12.000 books.

Mozart, at the 14 years age, had the privilege to listen to once the Miserere Gregorio Allegri which was played, per annum at Easter, with the Chapelle Sixtine. It retranscribed of memory the partition. At the time, the the Vatican kept it secret and prohibited with its musicians to reveal it some manner that it was under penalty of Excommunication, which emphasizes even more the feat of ingenuity of Mozart.

People presumedly endowed with an eidetic memory

By alphabetical order :

Characters equipped with an eidetic memory

Alphabetically of author (the characters equipped with this memory appear between Parenthèse S):

See too

  • Rain Man ( Barry Levinson ) where Dustin Hoffman plays the part of an autist reached of the syndrome To sprinkle
  • Stephen Wiltshire British artist

Internal bonds

External bonds

  • (in) Site of plays
    • Video
  • of Stephen Wiltshire to work (in English)

Random links:Pleurodèle de Waltl | With sight on Arno | Joseph Daul | Sebastien Lee | The Era of Apocalypse