Photographic memory theory

Absane

Absane

Rocket Surgeon
Valued Senior Member
I have a theory, making it possible to develop photographic memory. Assuming you can think visually with pretty good clarity, you might be able to do this. You can look at something and be able to recognize that it has either changed or stayed the same since the last time you looked at it. What if while you are looking at an object, you also visualize it. I believe doing this you have two modes of input. It should be noted that after recognizing something enough times, you can later recall every detail from visual memory.

The problem is, how do you visualize something and look at the object at the same time? I have been having problems with this because I assume my brain is saying to itself "why visualize somethign I am looking at?"

Any ideas?

James Sibley
 
I can't provide a link, but I'm pretty sure that the idea of a photographic memory has been mostly disproven.

When you see something, it's normally visualized in patches, with the rest kind of filled in. Add that to the fact that visual perception isn't always accurate...and you see what I mean.

Although I can't say for sure.
 
Originally posted by Xerxes
I can't provide a link, but I'm pretty sure that the idea of a photographic memory has been mostly disproven.
Click to expand...

Disproven? How so?

I recall watching a story on a savant that could look at an immensly detailed object (a city seen from the air for example), and draw every tiny detail from memory. If that isn't photographic memory I don't know what it is.
 
So just because you cannot convceive any other explanation of a near perfect memory, means that it must be 'photographic'? Absurd.

If I must...a link.

"Scientists who study memory phenomena generally believe that eidetic
memory (more popularly known as "photographic memory") does not exist.
Early experiements on eidetic memory were intriguing, but could not be
replicated.

People do show extraordinary memory performance in certain
circumstances. For example, expert chess players can typically play
blindfolded chess against several opponents at the same time, easily
memorizing many chessboard configurations. Others use special tricks
to memorize long lists of randomly selected numbers.

Impressive as these feats are, scientists attribute them to
specialized ways of thinking about the information, not to any kind of
enhanced visual memory. One interesting experiment that makes this
point was performed by a cognitive psychologist named DeGroot.

Expert chess players were shown a chess board with pieces on it for a
brief period, such as 15 seconds, and then asked to reconstruct what
they had seen on a new chess board. That is, they were asked to place
chess pieces in the same positions as they had appeared on the board
they'd been shown. The expert players were very good at this, much
better than novice players. One hypothesis was that the experts had
developed an enhanced ability to memorize visual information.

In the next experiment, the expert chess players were asked to do the
very same thing; butt this time, they were shown boards whose pieces
were arranged in ways that would never actually occur in a game of
chess. Not only did their ability to remember the positions go down,
but it went down all the way to the level of the novice players. We
can conclude that the original, enhanced performance at remembering
chess positions came from the experts' ability to mentally organize
the information they had observed, not from any ability to
"photograph" the visual scene."

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/aug97/866819368.Ns.r.html

It's as hard to 'disprove' this theory as it is to disprove creationism. But like usual, most scientists agree.

:m:

Edit:: There a lot of information on google. Very interesting stuff. If your interested then I suggest you read up on it.
 
Originally posted by Xerxes
So just because you cannot convceive any other explanation of a near perfect memory, means that it must be 'photographic'? Absurd.
Click to expand...


Isn't it photographic by definiton if someone remembers every little detail in perfect sequence? Regardless of the methods you use to store the information, if you can reconstruct an image perfectly from memory I'd say it was photographic.

What else would you call a memory like that?
 
The problem is that 'photographic memory' suggests that you take a 'mental picture' which you can later look at for informaiton. This does not appear to be the case.

Put somebody in a room where the wall has 200 different colored squares, 2 paragraphs of text, and a 50 digit number. Some people will be able to recall 1 of these things, but nobody will recall all in perfect detail.

What looks like photographics recall (the drawing of the city) is probably just the recognization of patterns. I think I saw the show with the person you speak of. they in no way drew 'every little detail', as would be possible with 'photographic' memory.
 
For a lack of a better title..call it what you will.

The term 'photographic' is innacurate and misleading. And by using it we only serve to mislead more.

For example, think of the word 'soul' and imagine all of the devastation and anxiety it's caused people when they realized it's a sham..little less than to describe the state of consciousness.

Because of that I'd like to keep it as accurate as possible.

Anyways, it's just a personal preference. Take no offense.

EDIT::
Thanks persol. Got your response in a bit earlier than mine, I see! :m:
 
Lol, it's very annoying when someone posts your point while you are still writing. I feel your pain. Sorry Xerxes. :D
 
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