Misconceptions Regarding Photographic Memory

By Tyler Gagner


We have all heard about photographic memory before. The ability to look at words or images and remember everything with impeccable detail is impressive, to say the least, but for some reason, no one ever talks about it. Is photographic memory too good to be true? Is it a myth, or just an extremely rare phenomenon? The first time I ever heard about photographic memory was in my 5th-grade music class. My teacher spoke about a student that could remember things unlike any other person he has seen, and he swore that this student had a photographic memory. I was intrigued by this as I imagined how easy life could be with a photographic memory.  

Fast forward to today, this would be one of the few times since that 5th-grade music class that I would have put any thought into this phenomenon and as a reader, I am sure you have truly put little thought into photographic memory too. Photographic memory sounds too good to be true, and that’s because it is. In the book “The Memory Illusion” the author explains that the closest thing we have to photographic memory is eidetic memory which is not much of a gift at all since it is prevalent in children who have developmental disabilities (Dr. Julia Shaw, 2016, pg.166). 

In the article “Does photographic memory exist?” the author talks about the winner of the Memory Olympics and how she still had to keep sticky notes to remember the things she had to do (Scientific American, 2013). How can someone win a memory competition, yet need to keep physical notes to remember what to do during the day? This example further proves that a stereotypical photographic memory does not exist because even a memory competition winner at the Olympic level cannot remember everything. If photographic memory did exist, they would be the winners of memory competitions at this level, right?  

If the memory competition winner did not have a photographic memory, then how was she able to win a memory competition? Our “Memory” textbook (Baddeley, 2020) provides some insight as to why some people have a better memory than others via a concept called deliberate practice which is where someone puts a full concentrated effort into a training activity to improve an aspect of performance (pg. 117). If someone were to put 10,000 hours of concentrated effort into a specific task, they are bound to have more expertise than someone who only put 1000 hours into the same task (pg. 116). The people with the best memory purposely train their minds to be able to remember more than the average person, and the best part is that anyone can improve their memory through learning and repetition. In the journal article titled “The New Multimodal Approach to Memory Improvement,” The author notes that rehearsal or repetition for memory-related tasks works and has been proven to work since the 6th century (Herrmann, 1990).  

Hopefully, this blog has helped clear up some misconceptions you may have had about photographic memory. It sounds too good to be true and indeed it is too good to be true. People who have the best memory have purposely trained themselves to remember more. A good memory is not necessarily a gift, like most things in life it takes a lot of work, but through repetition and deliberation to train your memory you could obtain an exceptional memory, just not a photographic one. 

References

Baddeley, A. D., Eysenck, M. W., & Anderson, M. (2020). Memory. Routledge Taylor et Francis  Group. 

Herrmann, D. J. (1990). The new multimodal approach to Memory Improvement. Psychology of  Learning and Motivation, 175–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0079-7421(08)60054-7

Scientific American. “Does Photographic Memory Exist.” Scientific American Mind, vol. 23, no. 6, 19 Dec. 2012, pp. 70–70, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/i-developed-what-appears-to-be-a-ph/

Shaw, J. (2017). The memory illusion: Remembering, forgetting, and the science of false  memory. Random House.

ThinkingKarla Lassonde