Photographic memory how does it work

Memory is more like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle than a photograph. To recollect a past event, we piece together various remembered elements and typically forget parts of what happened the color of the wall, the picture in the background, the exact words that were said. Passing over details helps us to form general concepts. We are good at remembering the gist of what happened and less good at remembering photographically all the elements of a past scene. This is advantageous because what is important for memory is the meaning of what was presented, not the exact details present at any given time.

Of course, people vary in their ability to remember the past. How well we remember things depends largely on how well we pay attention when material is presented. Additionally, the extent to which we replay the material in our minds and relate it to what we already know affects our ability to remember. Some people with excellent memory use elaborate techniques to help them remember.

Others are able to effortlessly recall vast amounts of autobiographical information spanning most of the lifetime. Scientists are learning more about memory by studying these people, as well as people who have very poor memory as the result of neurological injury or disease. His research explores the organization and neurological foundations of memory.

Every month, we choose one reader question and get an answer from a top neuroscientist. Always been curious about something? Disclaimer: BrainFacts. It certainly is a fascinating phenomenon. Sign up for our email newsletter. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.

See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Alan Searleman, a professor of psychology at St. Lawrence University and co-author of the college textbook Memory from a Broader Perspective, explains. Get smart. Sign Up. Support science journalism.

Knowledge awaits. See Subscription Options Already a subscriber? Create Account See Subscription Options. Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription. More than 40, subscribers can't be wrong. Teddy Roosevelt could recite entire newspaper pages—not just articles—as if they were sitting in front of him.

Arturo Toscanini conducted operas from memory after his eyesight became too poor to read the music. And Lu Chao from China recited the first 67, digits of pi by employing memorization techniques. For instance, while they may be able to recite pages upon pages from a book without error, they often fail to do the same in reverse. If their memories were like photos, they should have been able to easily reproduce the text in reverse order.

They can describe the image with an unusual level of accuracy and detail. Eidetic memory is controlled primarily by the posterior parietal cortex in the brain.

This is the part of the brain through which visual stimuli are processed, and images retained. For most people, these images are only stored for a few short seconds before being discarded or transferred to short-term memory.

People like Lu Chao, who holds the record for the longest string of pi digits a person ever recited from memory, use mnemonic techniques to help them record information. Although he could remember 67, digits in the right order, Chao is no genius.