Eidetic memory
Also called: Photographic memory (popular term)
Some children can keep a detailed picture of an image in view for a short time after it is taken away. The ability fades by the teenage years. A true photographic memory in adults has never been confirmed.
How common
Can you do this?
How it works
An eidetic image is a detailed mental picture that stays “in front of” a person for up to a few minutes after the real picture is removed. Children who have it can scan the image with their eyes and report details as if they were still looking at it1. This is different from an afterimage. An afterimage moves with the eyes and shows reversed colours. An eidetic image stays on the surface where the picture was and keeps its true colours3.
The psychologist Ralph Haber studied schoolchildren for ten years and found the ability in a small minority3. It is most common between the ages of 6 and 12 and fades with age1. Almost no adults have it. One hypothesis is that as children learn to put what they see into words, the raw visual store is used less and weakens. This is not proven.
The popular idea of a photographic memory is different. It means an adult who can look at a page once and recall every word later, as if from a photograph. Nobody with this ability has passed a controlled test1. People who do well in memory competitions use trained techniques, such as attaching items to places along an imaginary walk. The cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky called photographic memory an unfounded myth1.
How common it is
Between 2% and 10% of children aged 6 to 12 show eidetic imagery in tests1. The rate in adults is close to zero.
Is it a problem?
No. Eidetic imagery in children is not a disorder and needs no treatment. It is simply a way some young visual memories work for a few years before fading1. It is not a sign that a child is unusually gifted or unusually troubled, and its disappearance by the teenage years is normal, not a loss.
There is nothing to watch for here, and there is no known way to restore a childhood eidetic image or make an adult grow one. Claims of an adult “photographic memory” should be treated with scepticism1.
History and culture
The strongest claim ever recorded was a Harvard student known as Elizabeth, reported in 19702. She reported fusing two random-dot patterns viewed a day apart into a single 3D image, which would require an exact memory of thousands of dots2. She later married the researcher and was never tested again1. No other person has repeated the feat.
Sources and further material
- slate.com Kaavya Syndrome Charles Stromeyer reported the "Elizabeth" case in 1970. She was never tested again.
- doi.org Twenty years of haunting eidetic imagery: where's the ghost? Review of Haber's ten-year study of schoolchildren. Gives the tests that separate eidetic images from afterimages.
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Related oddities
Highly superior autobiographical memory
Fewer than a hundred people worldwide have been confirmed to recall what happened on almost any date since about age 10, in detail and without effort. Their memory for other things, such as lists or numbers, is ordinary.
Afterimages
An image that stays in your vision after the thing you looked at is gone. Bright things leave a same-colour copy for a moment. Long stares leave a copy in opposite colours.
Aphantasia
Most people see a picture in their mind when they think of a friend's face. People with aphantasia see only a faint image or none. About 4 in 100 people are like this, and about 1 in 100 see nothing at all. A few people have images almost as vivid as real sight.