July 2, 2019 • 45 mins
Photographic memory is the stuff of movies and TV, but is it real? Sort of. But not really. But kind of. It's a little bit a matter of semantics. Listen in and this will all make sense.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Attention world. If you can make it to America, then
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(00:45):
You can get tickets and info at s Y s
K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works? Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, and the ghost of
(01:07):
Jerry Rowland just seated next to us, just Frank the chair.
I guess, yeah, hey Frank, Yeah, Jerry. Everyone has a
hurt shoulder from bowling. Let's to go to the doctor.
And uh did that deal which she's only done a
couple of times where she just hits record and leaves
and it always feels like the teacher is gone. It
(01:28):
feels really weird in here, and that we should like
do something disruptive and wrong. So we're practicing paper airplanes. Basically,
it's the worst thing we could come up with, doing spitballs.
Josh just threw a couple of Pence's up pencils up
and stuck them in the ceiling. I still got it,
remember that old move? Sure, well clearly. And uh what else? Um,
we started a fire in the metal waste basket. Yeah. Uh,
(01:51):
Chuck's trying out drugs. Sure, and uh we started listening
to Miley Crewe. That's right. And we're gonna talk about
photographic memory, which, as it turns out, it's kind of
not real. Yeah, it's a semantic thing, photographic memory. As
(02:11):
you it's funny that we're talking about being an elementary school,
because that's it's sort of one of those things that
used to hear a lot on the playground about you know,
so and so has got a photographic memory. You know,
they can read a book and like recite every word
from it or something. There's something so juvenile about claiming
that you have it yourself as an adult. Yeah, that
playground thing I hadn't put my finger on. But yeah,
(02:35):
And as it turns out, what you call photographic memory
isn't really a thing. There are people with amazing memories
and people with amazing uh techniques to develop better memories.
But this whole notion of a photographic memory, like you
could walk you know, like you see on TV or something,
(02:57):
isn't really a thing. No. No, it's a from TV,
it's a thing from books. It's it's something that you know,
you attribute to like Sherlock Holmes or just some great
genius us. Sure, obviously everybody knows you had a photographic memory. Um,
but the the idea that that, yeah, you can just
walk around, have an experience or you know, flipped through
(03:21):
a phone book and like a year later recite that
phone book. That doesn't happen. There's maybe one person who's
ever lived that came very close to that who we
talked about before. Kim Peak the the inspiration for rain Man,
but um, they're still not sure if kim Peak would
have really fully fit that bill even Yeah, but for
(03:44):
the most part, that idea is not It isn't it's
not real. But again it's also a question of semantics,
because if someone has the abilities of a kim Peak,
it's like, well, you know, isn't that photographic memory basically? Right? Right? Yeah?
I think maybe. Then let's say it like this. There,
(04:04):
anyone who says that they have a photographic memory is
probably full of it. Yes, they probably have a better
than average memory, that's what they're saying. But that doesn't
mean that they have a perfect memory. Because here's the thing.
Even people with outstanding amazing memory abilities, they still get
stuff wrong. And that seems to be part and parcel
(04:25):
with this idea of a photographic memory, that not only
is the recall amazing over long periods of time and
in detail and clarity, but that it's flawless too. That
they don't get stuff wrong, they don't insert stuff that
wasn't there originally, they don't misremember things. That's part of
the photographic memory, and that doesn't exist for sure. That
(04:46):
would be perfect recall, and the brain just isn't really
capable of that. All right. Well, we're gonna start out
this episode though, talking about something else that's a slight
variation which is called idetic memory I D E T
I C. And that is something found exclusively in kids
between the ages of six and twelve, roughly about two
(05:10):
kids during in that age group. Yeah, So here's what
they do for these tests. You get a subject. You
get a little six year old or seven year old,
or an eight year old, nine year older, ten year older,
eleven year old or twelve year old. Okay, but no,
no more beyond that. Uh, And then you show them
an image. Kid can look at it for whatever seconds.
(05:31):
Then you take that image away, and then he say,
what do you recall about that image? And if you
have idetic memory, uh, for a very short term, you
can recall with astonishing detail what was in that image. Yeah,
maybe another thirty seconds, maybe up to a couple of minutes.
And there's a lot going on here, all right, So
(05:52):
it's not like here, look at this image and then
that you take the image away and the kid goes
over and sits down and like really thinks about what
was in the picture. The kid holds the pose and
their line of sight just like they were when the
picture was in front of them, as if they're still
looking at the picture. And here's the thing about idetic memory.
(06:14):
The kid who's showing off there, and people who have
idetic memory are called identic Ersay, I know it's weird,
but um, the identic er isn't recalling what they saw.
They never stopped seeing. They're holding it visually in their
line of sight, even though the picture is no longer
(06:35):
physically present. Yeah. And one of the ways they can
tell is that they talk about it in the present
tent Still they don't say, well, the picture had a
red car with a weird looking dog driving it, Right,
it's it's present tense. It's the picture has a red
car with a weird looking dog driving it. Yeah. Yeah,
So that's a big it's a big one, right. That's
(06:57):
people think, well, that's photographic memory. But that's really the
closest thing to photographic memory that science has really happened upon. Well,
one of them will get into another one in a
little while, but there's a lot of a lot of
divergence from what you tend to think of as photographic memory.
For one, Again, it's a very short duration thirty seconds,
(07:19):
a couple of minutes, and then five minutes later they
talk about the picture, and the kids like what what picture?
What picture? Where am I? Why? Why did you drug
me and tie me up? Apparently even them speaking during
this period or even blinking can shut it off. Yeah,
and especially not just speaking but saying what the thing
(07:39):
is saying out loud. Oh, red car will make the
picture vanish from there there, almost like a trance or
something kind of it does really interesting. Uh. They can
make errors as well and put things in there that
weren't there, so that obviously is not a photographic memory. Yeah,
the dog driving the car had a cat friend. That's believable.
(08:01):
That's really stupid. Kids. Yeah. By the way, everyone, the
cats and the dogs are getting along great. Just to
update that everyone's getting along fine. But we have a
one of the kittens is a bed pier, and so
we're trying to sort that out, which is not a
fun problem. You know what. The solution to that is
kitty diapers, the cutest diapers. Yeah, yeah, we're getting through that.
(08:25):
Not what do you do? You just like clap loudly
next to it. Yeah, you try, you know, if you
catch them, you try and hustle them really quickly into
the litter box. The whole idea is that get to
get them associating litter with being, and so it's just like, yeah,
but usually cats are really intuitive. I've never had a
cat that wasn't like immediately just literally trained. Yeah, so
(08:45):
this is a little bit distressing. How long has it
been going on. We've had like three or four bed piece.
Oh that's not too bad. They'll pick it up in
no time. Uh. But anyway, I just want to update everyone. So, oh,
is this true about the idetic memory Uh studies being
done by the Nazis? Is that correct? Yeah, the the
(09:08):
Nazis found out about this. I'm not quite sure how,
but their attributed with some of the earliest studies of
idetic memory, and they, in Nazi fashion, gave it a
really bad name because they were using it to promote
how the Aryan race was obviously superior because our kids
have idetic memory. And so since you know, just about
(09:28):
anything the Nazis studied, whether it was legitimate studies or not,
it just had a taint to it. Afterward, I choked,
if you will, Nazi stank pretty much right, and so
um they it was discontinued for many decades, and then
I can't find out who picked it up. It's really weird.
Like when you look up photographic memory, almost everything that
(09:50):
comes back for research says photographic memories not real. And
here's why. Um, there are such thing as idetic memory,
but there's almost no information on like the actual study
of it, who's conducting it. Usually it will be like
they'll even sighte like one study everyone will this doesn't
even have that. It's real cryptic almost in weird and
(10:12):
just I want to say, fringey. But there's nobody who
questions the science behind. It's proven that this does exist.
We know kind of the mechanics of it, how it
actually or what the process is, what's actually happening or
how kids display this stuff. We know how to test
for it. So it is real and there's that catchy
name identic urs. It's definitely a real thing. But what
(10:36):
how it's being studying and who's studying is just totally lost.
I mean, I can't find it well, and we don't
know you know why it's only in children or really
a whole lot of concrete conclusions about it other than
the fact that it happens. Well, there's some interesting hypotheses
about that. Let's hear it. Well, the fact that kids
from six to twelve are developing it and it stops
(10:59):
beyond that. Just that has to do with language development
and the fact that if you verbalize what the thing is,
you've labeled it in a certain way and shut your
brain off. That suggests that has to do with labeled
or language development too. They think that maybe the kids
are not compartmentalizing what they saw in abstracts like people
(11:21):
do with normal memories, and so it's able to stay
in their in their visual field even after they're no
longer looking at it. Interesting. Yeah, But about two to
idetic memory, Well, it is interesting though because the word
photographic memory. This sounds as close to that as it gets,
because it almost sounds like they are taking a sort
(11:43):
of a brain snapshot, because they're just sort of in
a trance and gazing at what it once was. But again,
they can't move, they can't speak, they can't blink, and
with you know, five minutes later, once they do blink
or whatever and snap out of this trance. If you
want to call it that, which clearly do. Um, so
we will. We'll just call it trance. Once they step
(12:04):
out of the trance, Um, they can't recall the picture.
So it's not it's not a very good example of
photographic memory. But it's the closest thing science has shown
aside from some other ones. Let's talk about later, all right,
Should we take a break? I think we should. All right,
let's do it and we'll talk more about PM right
after this. Alright, So, um, they have not found any
(12:53):
like again, science hasn't come forward and said, hey, there
is photographic memory and this is it and this is
how it works. Right, All those people who are like
promoting themselves with having a photographic memory, they no one
they no one's gotten their hands on one of them
and say, this guy is totally right that he has
a photographic memory, or she right, or they that's right,
But that it's still something you hear on the playground.
(13:15):
It's still something you hear people tout. And there's a
few reasons why. Um. One one is and this kind
of has to do with the perfect pitch is. I
think humans just like to label and assign geniuses with
these tags like you know, Tesla had a photographic memory,
and it's very easy just to write that down and
(13:36):
it looks cool on a piece of paper. Um, And
that's kind of just as simple as that. He he
apparently was self proclaimed with a photographic memory. A lot
of people say this about themselves. He doesn't seem like
the type who would do that. He seems like the
type that people would say about him without him claiming it. Yeah,
but Mr T is one who claims to have a
(13:57):
photo Really so I saw Wow, so he could list
all the fools He's pittied right, all of them. I'm
wearring eighteen change right now. It doesn't even have to
look down. Wow, who else? You got anyone else? Teddy Roosevelt,
Uh Truman, capodikay um, Leonardo da Vinci. I'm not sure
(14:22):
if he was self proclaimed or if people just again
kind of ascribed it to him because he's a genius,
he is a da Vinci. But it is it's like
that that um, that kind of thing, like mythologizing extraordinarily
smart people. Well, we equate memory with intelligence, kind of
like Sherlock Holmes. Right, of course he's gonna have a
photographic memory. He's a highly intelligent person. Um so anybody
(14:46):
who seems extremely intelligent, genius level intelligence, especially someone in history,
we would describe something like a photographic right to him. Well,
there was an author name Cava, this Wanathon who there
was a case where this author was um accused of
plagiarism from another author. And Kaba was like, uh no,
(15:06):
I just have a photographic memory. And I'm sure I
read that book, but it was just so like burned
into my brain that I must have just repeated these
things without even knowing about it. She said that in
the New York Times, and so that gave occasion for
a lot of journalists and scientists to come for and
be like, by the way, everybody, there's no such thing
(15:26):
as photographic memory. So but there is a thing as
plagiarism there. Yeah, I was looking. I was like, what
were some of the some of the examples that was
pretty bad. In the original book, there was a line
in truly massochistic fashion, they chose to buy diet cokes
at Cinnabon. Okay, that's the original. The the plagiarized one
(15:47):
is in truly masochistic gesture, they chose to buy diet
cokes at Mrs fields. Yeah, that's plagiarism. Yeah it is.
That's not even like, that's plagiarism. One o one, like
they I'll swap out one word for a like word
and then it's fine and like crazy. She said this
(16:08):
in the New York Times. It was a photographic memory,
though it's not my fault. Another reason this is still
sort of out there in the public sphere is um
is the fact that there are people with amazing memories,
and there are memory competitions and memory uh exhibitions and
things like that. Yeah. I looked into that, Chuck, I
(16:30):
really so I got sucked into memory. I was like,
oh yeah, I forgot how cool memory stuff is. We
do a few podcasts on it. We talked about it
in cann of Thinking, Ca't make Me a Genius. We
talked about in a podcast to Remember Our Memory one.
We talked about it extensively in the Amnesia episode. Just
some good stuff. And there's more we could do. But
(16:50):
one of them is this whole idea of mind sports,
which includes memory, but it is organized competitions to to
show off your memory skills. There's actually five mind sports
memory mind mapping, which is a form of like taking
notes with like icons and colors and stuff. It's really neat. Like,
if you ever really need to commit something to memory,
(17:12):
look into mind mapping, speed reading i Q, which is
a little iffy to me, and then creative thinking. Like
there's a mind sport competition for creative thinking. I was like,
what is that? And you'll be given a question like
a little passage that says, like the alphabet makes no sense.
No one can make heads or tails of why it
follows the order it does. Put the alphabet into a
(17:35):
sensible order and explain how it makes sense. Stuff like that.
So there's people who are answering these questions coming up
with a creative system that makes sense. Though, right, it's
got to make sense. Yeah, you lose, you'd lose, you'd
be running out of town on a rail. Yeah, it's Um,
it sounds really neat, But there's there's with memory in particular.
(17:58):
There's the World Memory Championship and they're being held in Wuhan,
China this December two nine. Well, you think of a
show like Jeopardy, and um, there are things that you
can certainly figure out question and answer wise on Jeopardy,
But I would say most of that is recall it
(18:20):
is recall. And that's the same thing with mine sports too.
Like if you if you talk to a world memory champion,
there's one in particular named Dominic O'Brien who is what
I don't know, it's just funny to think of these
like a picture of walking in with his boxing robe.
He know, he's more them. You'd find him with like
a neat scotch and a cigarette going in like a
(18:43):
dark bar somewhere. He just strikes me that a super friendly,
neat guy. And he's just like mumbling presidential returns over
the past fig you know, he's like running numbers or
something like that. That's my guest. And he's like a
bookie in a bar or something. That's what he strikes
me as. All right again, really nice guy. I don't
know he's doing anything illegal, but a British man named
Dominic just strikes me as like a bookie anyway. He's
(19:06):
an eight time World memory Champion, World memory champion, and
he'll tell you like it's all training, it's practice, it's
nemonic devices, and just about anybody who is involved in
mind sports will say it's all it's all practice, and
it's using techniques to expand your memory, which is really
amazing because what these guys are doing, um, one of
(19:29):
them is is card reading. They will give you a
deck of cards and you will go through scan it
in order, maybe be given a minute to scan it,
maybe three minutes something like that. You'll put it down
and then twenty minutes later they'll ask you to recall
the deck in the order of the cards. And these
guys like get it flawlessly perfect. That's pretty amazing. It
(19:50):
is amazing. But they are saying, like, I have learned
to do this. I was not born like this. I
don't have a photographic memory. I'm using things like devices
that are that are are techniques to help me remember stuff. Yeah,
there's this, Um, have you ever heard of a memory palace? Yeah, okay,
so a memory palace. Then it's just like building a
(20:12):
castle or whatever, and like different rooms or where you
put different things and specifically you might have a drawer
for a specific thing and you remember where that specific
thing is because you placed it in that drawer in
that room in your palace that you've built in your mind. Yeah,
and it's a very helpful way to remember things for sure. Uh.
And also shout out to a friend of the show
(20:33):
and Nate to Mayo and his great Yes, the Memory
the Memory Past. Oh my gosh, I never I never
put two and two together. Nate's still around, still a
great show. Well sure, sure, I don't think he died
or anything, but I'm saying like I knew, I knew
his His show is named The Memory Place connection. I
never did. You should have put it in the Memory Palace.
That is a great name, Nate, and that is a
(20:55):
great I liked it even more before, but I was
just taking it more like like Tolkien sell her door,
like it was just pretty, you know what I mean. So, um,
there have been some connections that people have made with
sinnist eats and uh people with supposedly photographic memories. Um.
There's a writer named Solomon Schefski who was a writer
(21:18):
I think I already said that in the twentieth century,
in the early twentieth century, and he had these really
amazing powers of memory, and he uses uh or used
pneumonic techniques like we talked about he did. But he
was also a cinnist eat. So the point was made
here was that he basically had been doing this his
(21:38):
whole life involuntarily because of associations that cynistats make with
color and sound and shape and things like that. Yeah,
that's how that's how a memory becomes all more solid,
is associated with an emotion or a physical sensation. And um,
he was a multiple synisty, right, So rather than say,
(21:58):
like a sound having a color, this guy when he
heard a bell ring, he saw white, tasted salt water,
and sense something small and round from the sound of
a bell. He he would not read the paper while
he was eating because the tastes that the words on
the page evoked would compete with the taste of the food.
(22:20):
He was like, he would he had it just powerfully synesthesia.
That's pretty cool. Um, so yeah, he couldn't help but
have an amazing memory. Pretty cool. Um. The neemonic devices
everyone uses those in school or they'd tell you that's
a good way to remember things. Um. But then there's also,
um what and this is a grabstor article what he
(22:40):
just called relentless obsession. And you know, when you if
you want to go on Jeopardy, memorize the constitution, memorize
every state flag, every state bird, every state motto. It's
like it's if you pour yourself into that kind of study,
and you're obsessed over memorizing a certain thing, then you
(23:03):
could probably do it over time, right, Yeah, um, ed
uses the example of them what are they called the
shas Pollock, Yes, who were a sect of Polish Jews
who memorized the Babylonian Talmud, which, as from what I gather,
one of two versions of the Talmud. I think they're
(23:23):
like eight or twelve books. It's a lot, yeah, like
five thousand pages. And these these guys would they would
remember the Talmud so precisely that a case study from
nineteen seventeen based on eyewitness accounts said that you could
put a pin on a word on one page and
(23:44):
push the pin through, say fifty pages, and they could
tell you the word that that pin came out on
the fifty pages ahead. So that's geography too kind of.
That's a really good example of a potential photographic memory, right,
but also example of obsession. Um. I did a little
more reading on them too. They were known as uh
(24:05):
Numonists for neumonic. It's interesting. That's just I don't know,
I think that might have been a early Eastern European
and Russian name for someone with amazing memory because the Sheerschewski. Um.
He was written about as a patient just by the
(24:28):
pseudonym s by a psychologist, very famous psychologist named Alexander Luria,
and he he titled his paper book The Mind of
a New Honest. So I wonder if that was like
an old timey word for like somebody with an amazing memory.
That's probably word? What is that? Namu? Oh yeah, I
like I like yours more? Th Another thing is that
(24:52):
a lot of times when someone you might think or
they claim to have a photographic memory, it's on a
very specific, um thing that they are obsessed with, Like
a chess player may be able to memorize like these
incredibly complex sequences or games that they played, but may
not have a great memory otherwise of other things. I
can't remember their anniversary, asked their wives. Yeah you know
(25:15):
for sure? Um, who's this other guy? John Van Newman?
He was a mathematical genius and he could recite chapters
of books and pages of the phone book. But apparently
he was like that was sort of where it ended.
He didn't have like a memory outside of like these
very specific things. Right. He also never claimed to have
(25:35):
a photographic memory, which is pretty cool. Because if anybody
could claim that he was definitely one of them, and
he was a polymath just straight up genius in general,
it's a great varied thinker. Yeah. He I read somewhere
that he used to tell jokes with his dad in
in classical Greek at age six, which I mean, if
(25:56):
you're doing that at age six with your dad, it's
a specific type of household you're being raised. And yeah,
that Stephen Wiltshire guy is pretty interesting. Um. I remember
seeing something on him a while ago. I think we
talked about him in the Thinking Cap episode two. Yeah,
that might have been it. He's from London and is
has autism and he's the guy who, you know it
(26:16):
takes a helicopter ride over Berlin Lands and then draws
it and like astonishing detail. Yes, but and it is astonishing.
But and people put him up as an example of
photographic memory. There are flaws in the recollection, in the telling.
These are renderings are not architecturally precise. Yeah, but still,
(26:38):
I mean better than it's astonishing. No. I think what's
astonishing is is the art. And I think people should
just like lay off the photographic memory part of it
and just say Stephen Wiltscher is an amazing artist who
I can see a scene and encapsulated on paper with
ease or seeming ease. Yeah, And then you really can't
start a conversation about memory of any kind without talking
(27:01):
about Kim Peak, who we mentioned earlier, who was again
the the the inspiration for rain Man, but was much
more friendly, much more outgoing, much happier than rain Man was. Yeah,
he was a real jerk. He was real. He wasn't
a jerk, but he was much more introverted. Kim Peek
was much more happy, go lucky, and like very talkative
(27:23):
and curious and um. For a very long time he
was considered to have had autism, but now they think
he had f G syndrome, which is a very specific
genetic disorder UM that's characterized by people who are friendly, inquisitive, hyperactive,
and have a short attention span. And from what I understand,
that describes Kim Peak to a key to T yeah,
(27:47):
not a key to a KP. He would his his
whole thing. I mean, he had a great memory, but
he had basically memorized the calendar. And when you say calendar,
you mean like that means the calendar of the past. Tuesday.
Everybody knows that. Yeah, but what day was, uh, you know,
(28:09):
July first, nineteen seventy seven. He can say, well, that
was the Thursday, and on this state, these things happened.
That kind of memory, yeah, which is pretty astounding in
and of itself. But he was also able to do
things like read the phone book two pages at a time. Yeah.
Now that's just off the charts. This is he may
(28:30):
be the only human being who is ever born capable
of doing. Yeah. His left eye was reading one page
and his right eye would read another page. Okay, astounding
that he could do that just visually optically. Yes, he
would retain this thing, and he could tell you the
phone number of somebody's name. You went back and and
said what is you know, what is John von Newman's
(28:51):
phone number? And he'd say the phone and would be like, really,
I don't want to call him. I'll talk you about
to say John bon Jovi for a second. I'm excited.
I have a joke in Greek. Yeah, I mean that's
that is. Let's let it that part out really, okay, Um. Really,
here's the thing with Peak though, is we talked a
lot about the Corpus colossum in the uh what's it
(29:15):
called restless hand syndrome, alien Han syndrome one of our
early early podcasts. That's right, I forgot that showed up
with the corpus colossum. We talked about it a bunch
of a bunch of shows. But that's what connects it
to hemispheres. Kimpek does not have a corpus colossum, like
not severed, not cut apart, not partial. It did not
grow in his brain. So he has two independent hemispheres
(29:38):
of his brain. And so when his left eye is
inputting all this stuff and his right eyes inputting all
this stuff, his brain can recall it separately but together.
That's just astounding. Is he still with us? No, he
died a few years ago. I don't remember of what
and like he was in his sixties, I believe. All right,
Well r I p MR Peak and let's take a
(30:00):
break now, and then we'll talk about a woman named
Jil Price right after this, all right, as promised, we're
(30:31):
gonna talk about Jill Price, who I remember from the
news in two thousand six is when she kind of
hit hit the big time with the news and she
was the one that she's called the woman who cannot
forget and pretty accurately because she has an audit. Well
they now they could call it a couple of things. Now, Um,
(30:52):
I saw H S a M. Highly superior autobiographical memory,
and then another condition called hyperthsmea thymesia hyperthymesia, Yeah with
a y in seventy that was this misspelled? Okay? Um
and to delete my correction, And hyper means excessive obviously,
(31:16):
and then thymesis is remembering, so it's excessive remembering. I like,
highly superior autobiographical memory though, yeah, and I saw where
they found they know of at least sixty other people
that have H S a M. Whereas this said only
to other people have been diagnosed with hyperthymesia. Right, it's
the same thing, it is. It's the exact same thing. Okay,
(31:37):
So are there sixty people or they're three? There's sixty
one from what I understand. Okay, Well, she can't forget stuff,
and these people apparently, you know, if you go back
and say what were you doing, you know, fourteen years
ago and two months in two days, or give them
a date date usually and then they will be able
to say what they did, what they were wearing, who
(31:57):
they were with what was on TV. Yeah, but the
thing is, so this is so you say, okay, great, fine,
we found these are the people with photographic memories. Not really,
because it's highly superior autobiographical memory, and that is a
very specific kind of memory. It's a type of episodic memory.
Episodic memories are personal memories, memories you generate as opposed
(32:19):
to semantic memory, which is memories that you make of
things like um uh, a car has two axles or
something stupid like that, like a fact that you recall,
rather than an autobiographical memory. So the the semantic memory
is normal in in people with HSAM or hyperthymesia. It's
(32:40):
the autobiographical stuff that is astoundingly photographic. Yeah, and people
also tried after she came out and made a you know,
kind of a big splash on the news programs, there
were people trying to poke holes in her condition, saying
that like, well, starting in her teenage year, she started
keeping these obsessively detailed diaries every day as well. Um,
(33:05):
which sure that can help. But just because you write
an obsessively detailed diary every day doesn't mean you're gonna
remember it five years later, right, No, that's that's exactly
the point, right. Yeah, maybe she is even using nemonics
to solidify it even further. But the fact that you
can give her a date at random and she can
remember it without consulting her her journal, um, it's pretty impressive.
(33:27):
It's definitely its own thing. And there's there's a pretty
widespread consensus that this is a real condition. But the
fact that you said it, she she keeps an obsessively
organized journal. Um. They believe it's possible that it's linked
to obsessive compulsive disorder. That the brains of people with
(33:49):
hyperthymesia UM have have the same traits, the same structures, um,
that people who have o c D have, and they'll
very frequently have kind of this co morbid collection of
stuff or um. They have traits that somebody, yeah, somebody
with o c D might have. I also wonder if
it has anything to do with narcissism. Oh really, I
(34:13):
don't know, man. It's autobiographical. Yeah, like they remember everything
about their life, but they might not be able to
tell you, like you know who the president is. But
the okay, if it is narcissism, it's a mass a kid, No,
it's a massochistic. That's the one where you're bad to yourself, right,
(34:33):
mean to yourself, because this is sort of a curse. UM.
So if you if you see interviews with Jill Price,
she's not a happy person by any stretch of the
imagination because part of this condition is not being able
to forget like emotions attached to things. Yeah, she she
after a very long time, met a man and married
(34:55):
him and they were very very close. Like she she
said later that that he just got her. He is
the first person to ever just get her and accept
her for who she was. Um. Other family and friends
would be like, can you not just let this go?
Can you not get over something that happened twenty years ago?
And she's like, no, I really can't. This guy just
accepted her and then of course he dies young from
(35:16):
I think cancer or something like that. So UM, rather
than going through the morning period in grieving like a
person normally would time healing all wounds, that does not
apply to somebody or hyperthiamesia because when they think of
that day again or something reminds them of that person
that and the memory of them is recalled, they experienced
(35:39):
that same pain like they experience. UM. The first time.
It happens forever. They cannot forget. It does not fade
like a sci fi movie basically, but it's a real thing.
Was the Tom Cruise thing? I repeat, rain Man, Yeah,
that's it. Uh. You know who else has hyperthymesia or
(36:00):
highly superior autobiographical memory? I think I know this because
you talked about her at length and the podcast. To
remember what I'll give you. I'll give you a one
degree of separation and you'll figure it out. Okay, don't
say Kevin Bacon Tony Danza what no, I didn't say. Sorry,
(36:23):
that was not a bad Tony Danza. Mona no um oh,
oh that's right. Uh. Yes, what's her name? Lisa Milana? No? No,
Mary Lou Henner from Taxi A Lissa Milana. Well wouldn't she?
And she just looked up from the gallery and the
congressional hearing and who me? I forgot about the taxi Mary?
(36:46):
That's right, Mary Lee has like has it? You can
say you'll give her a date or even like a
taxi episode. She'll start reciting lines the other person's line.
She'll talk about what she's wearing in the scene. Stuff
from the seventies. It's really impressive. She has the opposite experience,
though she loves the the the whole thing, like it's
a gift to her, whereas it's a curse to jil Price.
(37:09):
My memory is weird because I will and I'm sure
we talked about this in the other memory episodes, but
I can have the worst memory on the planet or
the best, and it all just depends on whatever detail
it is. It's either in in the old brain or
it's not. Yeah, Like I can recall some very specifically
things that people are like, how in the world do
you remember that? You know? The thing that bothers me
(37:29):
about this is we have had so much information passed
through our brains and I retained so little of it.
It's almost like I really wish I had more of
it in there. Yeah, it's just not though. I mean,
I guess it is if you drag it, but I
can't bring it to it to memory very easily. Yeah,
(37:50):
to find that couples though, whether that's you and I
or us and our individual wives can complement each other
with their memories. Yeah, and your abilities, like I'm really
good at remembering certain things, and Emily is really good
at remembering other types of things and together it's usually
works out. It's a whole person, yeah, basically, But you
(38:13):
do that too. You remember stuff that I don't remember,
like Mary lew Henterer, and the list goes on and on.
You remember way more than I do. But I don't
remember nearly as much as I should, I think, or
that I wish I did. I don't deal in shouts anymore. Chuck, Right,
so should we talk about um uh, Charles Stroemeyer, John Merritt,
and Elizabeth Sure. So this was a little bit wrong,
(38:38):
But the way I understood from what you sent me
as a follow up is that Charles Stroemeyer was the
one who did this initial initial research at Harvard in
the nineteen seventies. Is that right? Okay, So this guy
plays ads in newspapers. He was trying to do some
studies on photographic memory, and all these ads were were
images of random dots. And you could take a test
(38:59):
your cell just by looking at these dots very briefly
and then trying to reproduce them. And if you did
a really good job, you would follow up by getting
in touch with him saying, Hey, I nailed I nailed
your test, dude, talk to me I do the turtle
on the matchbook just right, remember the turtle and the
turtle night. Yeah, and that there was a pirate too, right,
What was that all about? It was like an art
(39:21):
correspondence course where you learn to draw through the mail.
Oh interesting, I think we talked about that on another episode.
Surely we have, I think. So sorry for derailing you
with the turtle thing. Now, that's okay. But that was
the long and short of what he was trying to
do and how he was trying to recruit subjects. And
I believe he got what like thirty people we're successful,
(39:43):
fifteen of which he was impressed enough by to go
to their house and follow up with. And one person
he really followed up with. He did he found out
of the fifteen, none of them had photographic memory. But
then later on he came across a woman from a
different study entirely named Elizabeth. And here's the thing. This
(40:06):
is nuts man. I he figured out Stromyer figured out
that if you took remember the three d um so
in the color Blind episode, Yeah, the magic image or
whatever where you could see the sailboat and the big
thing of dots. Right, So this thing was it didn't
have to do with color. It had to do with
(40:27):
overlaying the dots to create a three D image. So
you need two sets of dots and when you put
them together, they'll create like a magic I poster kind
of thing. So what Stroemyer figured out is you could
take these two layers and separate them. Show one of
the layers to somebody you're testing for photographic memories. They
really get a look at this. Okay, now I'm gonna
(40:48):
wait like a day, and then I'll show you the
second layer. Bring to mind that first layer you saw,
and overlay it in your mind, and see if you
can tell me what the three D images. That's amazing.
It is amazing. And stoe Meyer found one person who
could do it, a woman named Elizabeth, and he married her.
And he married her, and the weird thing is he
(41:08):
wrote like this whole though, this whole right up in
the journal Nature. Then he married her and no more
testing after that. So took her off the market every
way he did. But they so they're like, well, we can't,
we can't say that this is definitely a case of
photographic memory. If it were true, this would be the
closest thing to photographic memory. Anyone's ever come up with. Now,
(41:30):
Kim Pete holds the title, yet Elizabeth is just could
be the key, right could probably not though I saw
that in some follow up tests. This would explain why
he took her off the market. That, um, she couldn't
she she she couldn't do it. Really. Yeah, But then
this guy John Merritt, he came along later and used that, uh,
(41:54):
use those studies for his own purposes. He did. He
found that nobody could do this, that nobody is able
to do that. But they did figure out that, hey,
this makes a pretty good test to find um identic rs. Yeah,
because you don't. You don't show them one layer and
then take away the other layer and ask him a
day later. You show them one layer, ask him to
(42:15):
hold it in their mind, and then put the other
layer underneath it. And if you're an identic or, you
are typically able to see in three D and you
can go do this online. Actually, just don't blink, don't blink,
and don't say what it is you're looking at, like
Michael Caine always says, Oh, I've never heard him say that,
And that was one of he did these kind of
corny how to active video series I think at one
(42:37):
point and Letterman used to play bits of them because
they were really funny. If one of them was the
secret to great acting don't blink? Was was he trying
to be funny? The Letterman would played for laughs, don't
blink and he would say he would show you know
scenes and he's like, look at me, I'm not blinking,
And then Letterman would say don't blink like out of
the blue fifty times the rest of the song. Probably
(43:00):
love that guy. Yeah, ah, you got anything else, No, sir,
I've got one more lex Luthor. But he supposedly had
photographic memory. He's not real, Wellogh all the more likely
that he had photographic memory. Well, if you want to
know more about photographic memory, go take that Ideker test.
You'll love it. The Mr T thing is just back
(43:22):
to the podcast. Maybe I pity the fool that tripped
me on fifty seven Street on July. Well, Chuck made
a Mr. T reference, which means then it's time for listening.
Maw uh. This is I think just some some warm gratitudes.
(43:43):
Hey guys, I'm sure you get these emails all the time,
but I'd be remiss if I didn't thank you for
all your wonderful work, had a really tough time with
mental illness, and there have been a lot of nights
that your wonderful show is staved off panic attacks or worse.
Thank you for keeping me calm and educated. Thank you
for making me feel safe even in perilelus circumstances. Thank
you for giving me something to talk about when my
depression has kept me in a fog Without your massive
(44:04):
backlog up seemingly endless supply of fresh, fascinating subjects that
would surely be lost. Spent some time researching that can
truly appreciate just how much time and energy goes into
becoming familiar enough with something to explain it as succinctly
as you guys do. You are superheroes and rock stars.
You have truly saved me. Kindest and warmest regards, Georgia.
(44:24):
And here's the thing, everyone, I may have read this before,
but let's leave it in there, because if I did
read this before and forgot it, it will have been
within the last six or seven weeks, and it will
be a very funny ending to the memory episode either way.
The listener mails, so nice, you read it twice. Yeah,
(44:45):
that's appropriate. Uh, well, thanks a lot Georgia two times over.
Maybe thank you Chuck for that great ending. If you
want to get in touch with this, you can go
on to stuff you Should Know dot com, check out
our social links, and you can also send us an
email to podcasts at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff
(45:06):
you Should Know is a production of i Heeart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. H
Attention world. If you can make it to America, then
come see us. We are going out on the road
for s Y s K Live again, and we are
going to start the whole thing off in Chicago on July,
that's right. And if you can't make it to America,
maybe make it to Canada, because we're gonna be in
Toronto and the next night and Fourth Music Hall. Then
(00:22):
in August, we're gonna do a couple of dates at
the Wilburn Boston in October twenty nine. In Portland Mainz
Lovely State Theater on August, and then we're going to
be heading down to Florida. We're gonna be at PLASA
Live on October nine, and then the next night we're
going to be in New Orleans at the Civic Theater.
That's right, and then we're gonna round it out in
Brooklyn October at the Bellhouse. Yep. So come see us.
(00:45):
You can get tickets and info at s Y s
K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works? Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, and the ghost of
(01:07):
Jerry Rowland just seated next to us, just Frank the chair.
I guess, yeah, hey Frank, Yeah, Jerry. Everyone has a
hurt shoulder from bowling. Let's to go to the doctor.
And uh did that deal which she's only done a
couple of times where she just hits record and leaves
and it always feels like the teacher is gone. It
(01:28):
feels really weird in here, and that we should like
do something disruptive and wrong. So we're practicing paper airplanes. Basically,
it's the worst thing we could come up with, doing spitballs.
Josh just threw a couple of Pence's up pencils up
and stuck them in the ceiling. I still got it,
remember that old move? Sure, well clearly. And uh what else? Um,
we started a fire in the metal waste basket. Yeah. Uh,
(01:51):
Chuck's trying out drugs. Sure, and uh we started listening
to Miley Crewe. That's right. And we're gonna talk about
photographic memory, which, as it turns out, it's kind of
not real. Yeah, it's a semantic thing, photographic memory. As
(02:11):
you it's funny that we're talking about being an elementary school,
because that's it's sort of one of those things that
used to hear a lot on the playground about you know,
so and so has got a photographic memory. You know,
they can read a book and like recite every word
from it or something. There's something so juvenile about claiming
that you have it yourself as an adult. Yeah, that
playground thing I hadn't put my finger on. But yeah,
(02:35):
And as it turns out, what you call photographic memory
isn't really a thing. There are people with amazing memories
and people with amazing uh techniques to develop better memories.
But this whole notion of a photographic memory, like you
could walk you know, like you see on TV or something,
(02:57):
isn't really a thing. No. No, it's a from TV,
it's a thing from books. It's it's something that you know,
you attribute to like Sherlock Holmes or just some great
genius us. Sure, obviously everybody knows you had a photographic memory. Um,
but the the idea that that, yeah, you can just
walk around, have an experience or you know, flipped through
(03:21):
a phone book and like a year later recite that
phone book. That doesn't happen. There's maybe one person who's
ever lived that came very close to that who we
talked about before. Kim Peak the the inspiration for rain Man,
but um, they're still not sure if kim Peak would
have really fully fit that bill even Yeah, but for
(03:44):
the most part, that idea is not It isn't it's
not real. But again it's also a question of semantics,
because if someone has the abilities of a kim Peak,
it's like, well, you know, isn't that photographic memory basically? Right? Right? Yeah?
I think maybe. Then let's say it like this. There,
(04:04):
anyone who says that they have a photographic memory is
probably full of it. Yes, they probably have a better
than average memory, that's what they're saying. But that doesn't
mean that they have a perfect memory. Because here's the thing.
Even people with outstanding amazing memory abilities, they still get
stuff wrong. And that seems to be part and parcel
(04:25):
with this idea of a photographic memory, that not only
is the recall amazing over long periods of time and
in detail and clarity, but that it's flawless too. That
they don't get stuff wrong, they don't insert stuff that
wasn't there originally, they don't misremember things. That's part of
the photographic memory, and that doesn't exist for sure. That
(04:46):
would be perfect recall, and the brain just isn't really
capable of that. All right. Well, we're gonna start out
this episode though, talking about something else that's a slight
variation which is called idetic memory I D E T
I C. And that is something found exclusively in kids
between the ages of six and twelve, roughly about two
(05:10):
kids during in that age group. Yeah, So here's what
they do for these tests. You get a subject. You
get a little six year old or seven year old,
or an eight year old, nine year older, ten year older,
eleven year old or twelve year old. Okay, but no,
no more beyond that. Uh, And then you show them
an image. Kid can look at it for whatever seconds.
(05:31):
Then you take that image away, and then he say,
what do you recall about that image? And if you
have idetic memory, uh, for a very short term, you
can recall with astonishing detail what was in that image. Yeah,
maybe another thirty seconds, maybe up to a couple of minutes.
And there's a lot going on here, all right, So
(05:52):
it's not like here, look at this image and then
that you take the image away and the kid goes
over and sits down and like really thinks about what
was in the picture. The kid holds the pose and
their line of sight just like they were when the
picture was in front of them, as if they're still
looking at the picture. And here's the thing about idetic memory.
(06:14):
The kid who's showing off there, and people who have
idetic memory are called identic Ersay, I know it's weird,
but um, the identic er isn't recalling what they saw.
They never stopped seeing. They're holding it visually in their
line of sight, even though the picture is no longer
(06:35):
physically present. Yeah. And one of the ways they can
tell is that they talk about it in the present
tent Still they don't say, well, the picture had a
red car with a weird looking dog driving it, Right,
it's it's present tense. It's the picture has a red
car with a weird looking dog driving it. Yeah. Yeah,
So that's a big it's a big one, right. That's
(06:57):
people think, well, that's photographic memory. But that's really the
closest thing to photographic memory that science has really happened upon. Well,
one of them will get into another one in a
little while, but there's a lot of a lot of
divergence from what you tend to think of as photographic memory.
For one, Again, it's a very short duration thirty seconds,
(07:19):
a couple of minutes, and then five minutes later they
talk about the picture, and the kids like what what picture?
What picture? Where am I? Why? Why did you drug
me and tie me up? Apparently even them speaking during
this period or even blinking can shut it off. Yeah,
and especially not just speaking but saying what the thing
(07:39):
is saying out loud. Oh, red car will make the
picture vanish from there there, almost like a trance or
something kind of it does really interesting. Uh. They can
make errors as well and put things in there that
weren't there, so that obviously is not a photographic memory. Yeah,
the dog driving the car had a cat friend. That's believable.
(08:01):
That's really stupid. Kids. Yeah. By the way, everyone, the
cats and the dogs are getting along great. Just to
update that everyone's getting along fine. But we have a
one of the kittens is a bed pier, and so
we're trying to sort that out, which is not a
fun problem. You know what. The solution to that is
kitty diapers, the cutest diapers. Yeah, yeah, we're getting through that.
(08:25):
Not what do you do? You just like clap loudly
next to it. Yeah, you try, you know, if you
catch them, you try and hustle them really quickly into
the litter box. The whole idea is that get to
get them associating litter with being, and so it's just like, yeah,
but usually cats are really intuitive. I've never had a
cat that wasn't like immediately just literally trained. Yeah, so
(08:45):
this is a little bit distressing. How long has it
been going on. We've had like three or four bed piece.
Oh that's not too bad. They'll pick it up in
no time. Uh. But anyway, I just want to update everyone. So, oh,
is this true about the idetic memory Uh studies being
done by the Nazis? Is that correct? Yeah, the the
(09:08):
Nazis found out about this. I'm not quite sure how,
but their attributed with some of the earliest studies of
idetic memory, and they, in Nazi fashion, gave it a
really bad name because they were using it to promote
how the Aryan race was obviously superior because our kids
have idetic memory. And so since you know, just about
(09:28):
anything the Nazis studied, whether it was legitimate studies or not,
it just had a taint to it. Afterward, I choked,
if you will, Nazi stank pretty much right, and so
um they it was discontinued for many decades, and then
I can't find out who picked it up. It's really weird.
Like when you look up photographic memory, almost everything that
(09:50):
comes back for research says photographic memories not real. And
here's why. Um, there are such thing as idetic memory,
but there's almost no information on like the actual study
of it, who's conducting it. Usually it will be like
they'll even sighte like one study everyone will this doesn't
even have that. It's real cryptic almost in weird and
(10:12):
just I want to say, fringey. But there's nobody who
questions the science behind. It's proven that this does exist.
We know kind of the mechanics of it, how it
actually or what the process is, what's actually happening or
how kids display this stuff. We know how to test
for it. So it is real and there's that catchy
name identic urs. It's definitely a real thing. But what
(10:36):
how it's being studying and who's studying is just totally lost.
I mean, I can't find it well, and we don't
know you know why it's only in children or really
a whole lot of concrete conclusions about it other than
the fact that it happens. Well, there's some interesting hypotheses
about that. Let's hear it. Well, the fact that kids
from six to twelve are developing it and it stops
(10:59):
beyond that. Just that has to do with language development
and the fact that if you verbalize what the thing is,
you've labeled it in a certain way and shut your
brain off. That suggests that has to do with labeled
or language development too. They think that maybe the kids
are not compartmentalizing what they saw in abstracts like people
(11:21):
do with normal memories, and so it's able to stay
in their in their visual field even after they're no
longer looking at it. Interesting. Yeah, But about two to
idetic memory, Well, it is interesting though because the word
photographic memory. This sounds as close to that as it gets,
because it almost sounds like they are taking a sort
(11:43):
of a brain snapshot, because they're just sort of in
a trance and gazing at what it once was. But again,
they can't move, they can't speak, they can't blink, and
with you know, five minutes later, once they do blink
or whatever and snap out of this trance. If you
want to call it that, which clearly do. Um, so
we will. We'll just call it trance. Once they step
(12:04):
out of the trance, Um, they can't recall the picture.
So it's not it's not a very good example of
photographic memory. But it's the closest thing science has shown
aside from some other ones. Let's talk about later, all right,
Should we take a break? I think we should. All right,
let's do it and we'll talk more about PM right
after this. Alright, So, um, they have not found any
(12:53):
like again, science hasn't come forward and said, hey, there
is photographic memory and this is it and this is
how it works. Right, All those people who are like
promoting themselves with having a photographic memory, they no one
they no one's gotten their hands on one of them
and say, this guy is totally right that he has
a photographic memory, or she right, or they that's right,
But that it's still something you hear on the playground.
(13:15):
It's still something you hear people tout. And there's a
few reasons why. Um. One one is and this kind
of has to do with the perfect pitch is. I
think humans just like to label and assign geniuses with
these tags like you know, Tesla had a photographic memory,
and it's very easy just to write that down and
(13:36):
it looks cool on a piece of paper. Um, And
that's kind of just as simple as that. He he
apparently was self proclaimed with a photographic memory. A lot
of people say this about themselves. He doesn't seem like
the type who would do that. He seems like the
type that people would say about him without him claiming it. Yeah,
but Mr T is one who claims to have a
(13:57):
photo Really so I saw Wow, so he could list
all the fools He's pittied right, all of them. I'm
wearring eighteen change right now. It doesn't even have to
look down. Wow, who else? You got anyone else? Teddy Roosevelt,
Uh Truman, capodikay um, Leonardo da Vinci. I'm not sure
(14:22):
if he was self proclaimed or if people just again
kind of ascribed it to him because he's a genius,
he is a da Vinci. But it is it's like
that that um, that kind of thing, like mythologizing extraordinarily
smart people. Well, we equate memory with intelligence, kind of
like Sherlock Holmes. Right, of course he's gonna have a
photographic memory. He's a highly intelligent person. Um so anybody
(14:46):
who seems extremely intelligent, genius level intelligence, especially someone in history,
we would describe something like a photographic right to him. Well,
there was an author name Cava, this Wanathon who there
was a case where this author was um accused of
plagiarism from another author. And Kaba was like, uh no,
(15:06):
I just have a photographic memory. And I'm sure I
read that book, but it was just so like burned
into my brain that I must have just repeated these
things without even knowing about it. She said that in
the New York Times, and so that gave occasion for
a lot of journalists and scientists to come for and
be like, by the way, everybody, there's no such thing
(15:26):
as photographic memory. So but there is a thing as
plagiarism there. Yeah, I was looking. I was like, what
were some of the some of the examples that was
pretty bad. In the original book, there was a line
in truly massochistic fashion, they chose to buy diet cokes
at Cinnabon. Okay, that's the original. The the plagiarized one
(15:47):
is in truly masochistic gesture, they chose to buy diet
cokes at Mrs fields. Yeah, that's plagiarism. Yeah it is.
That's not even like, that's plagiarism. One o one, like
they I'll swap out one word for a like word
and then it's fine and like crazy. She said this
(16:08):
in the New York Times. It was a photographic memory,
though it's not my fault. Another reason this is still
sort of out there in the public sphere is um
is the fact that there are people with amazing memories,
and there are memory competitions and memory uh exhibitions and
things like that. Yeah. I looked into that, Chuck, I
(16:30):
really so I got sucked into memory. I was like,
oh yeah, I forgot how cool memory stuff is. We
do a few podcasts on it. We talked about it
in cann of Thinking, Ca't make Me a Genius. We
talked about in a podcast to Remember Our Memory one.
We talked about it extensively in the Amnesia episode. Just
some good stuff. And there's more we could do. But
(16:50):
one of them is this whole idea of mind sports,
which includes memory, but it is organized competitions to to
show off your memory skills. There's actually five mind sports
memory mind mapping, which is a form of like taking
notes with like icons and colors and stuff. It's really neat. Like,
if you ever really need to commit something to memory,
(17:12):
look into mind mapping, speed reading i Q, which is
a little iffy to me, and then creative thinking. Like
there's a mind sport competition for creative thinking. I was like,
what is that? And you'll be given a question like
a little passage that says, like the alphabet makes no sense.
No one can make heads or tails of why it
follows the order it does. Put the alphabet into a
(17:35):
sensible order and explain how it makes sense. Stuff like that.
So there's people who are answering these questions coming up
with a creative system that makes sense. Though, right, it's
got to make sense. Yeah, you lose, you'd lose, you'd
be running out of town on a rail. Yeah, it's Um,
it sounds really neat, But there's there's with memory in particular.
(17:58):
There's the World Memory Championship and they're being held in Wuhan,
China this December two nine. Well, you think of a
show like Jeopardy, and um, there are things that you
can certainly figure out question and answer wise on Jeopardy,
But I would say most of that is recall it
(18:20):
is recall. And that's the same thing with mine sports too.
Like if you if you talk to a world memory champion,
there's one in particular named Dominic O'Brien who is what
I don't know, it's just funny to think of these
like a picture of walking in with his boxing robe.
He know, he's more them. You'd find him with like
a neat scotch and a cigarette going in like a
(18:43):
dark bar somewhere. He just strikes me that a super friendly,
neat guy. And he's just like mumbling presidential returns over
the past fig you know, he's like running numbers or
something like that. That's my guest. And he's like a
bookie in a bar or something. That's what he strikes
me as. All right again, really nice guy. I don't
know he's doing anything illegal, but a British man named
Dominic just strikes me as like a bookie anyway. He's
(19:06):
an eight time World memory Champion, World memory champion, and
he'll tell you like it's all training, it's practice, it's
nemonic devices, and just about anybody who is involved in
mind sports will say it's all it's all practice, and
it's using techniques to expand your memory, which is really
amazing because what these guys are doing, um, one of
(19:29):
them is is card reading. They will give you a
deck of cards and you will go through scan it
in order, maybe be given a minute to scan it,
maybe three minutes something like that. You'll put it down
and then twenty minutes later they'll ask you to recall
the deck in the order of the cards. And these
guys like get it flawlessly perfect. That's pretty amazing. It
(19:50):
is amazing. But they are saying, like, I have learned
to do this. I was not born like this. I
don't have a photographic memory. I'm using things like devices
that are that are are techniques to help me remember stuff. Yeah,
there's this, Um, have you ever heard of a memory palace? Yeah, okay,
so a memory palace. Then it's just like building a
(20:12):
castle or whatever, and like different rooms or where you
put different things and specifically you might have a drawer
for a specific thing and you remember where that specific
thing is because you placed it in that drawer in
that room in your palace that you've built in your mind. Yeah,
and it's a very helpful way to remember things for sure. Uh.
And also shout out to a friend of the show
(20:33):
and Nate to Mayo and his great Yes, the Memory
the Memory Past. Oh my gosh, I never I never
put two and two together. Nate's still around, still a
great show. Well sure, sure, I don't think he died
or anything, but I'm saying like I knew, I knew
his His show is named The Memory Place connection. I
never did. You should have put it in the Memory Palace.
That is a great name, Nate, and that is a
(20:55):
great I liked it even more before, but I was
just taking it more like like Tolkien sell her door,
like it was just pretty, you know what I mean. So, um,
there have been some connections that people have made with
sinnist eats and uh people with supposedly photographic memories. Um.
There's a writer named Solomon Schefski who was a writer
(21:18):
I think I already said that in the twentieth century,
in the early twentieth century, and he had these really
amazing powers of memory, and he uses uh or used
pneumonic techniques like we talked about he did. But he
was also a cinnist eat. So the point was made
here was that he basically had been doing this his
(21:38):
whole life involuntarily because of associations that cynistats make with
color and sound and shape and things like that. Yeah,
that's how that's how a memory becomes all more solid,
is associated with an emotion or a physical sensation. And um,
he was a multiple synisty, right, So rather than say,
(21:58):
like a sound having a color, this guy when he
heard a bell ring, he saw white, tasted salt water,
and sense something small and round from the sound of
a bell. He he would not read the paper while
he was eating because the tastes that the words on
the page evoked would compete with the taste of the food.
(22:20):
He was like, he would he had it just powerfully synesthesia.
That's pretty cool. Um, so yeah, he couldn't help but
have an amazing memory. Pretty cool. Um. The neemonic devices
everyone uses those in school or they'd tell you that's
a good way to remember things. Um. But then there's also,
um what and this is a grabstor article what he
(22:40):
just called relentless obsession. And you know, when you if
you want to go on Jeopardy, memorize the constitution, memorize
every state flag, every state bird, every state motto. It's
like it's if you pour yourself into that kind of study,
and you're obsessed over memorizing a certain thing, then you
(23:03):
could probably do it over time, right, Yeah, um, ed
uses the example of them what are they called the
shas Pollock, Yes, who were a sect of Polish Jews
who memorized the Babylonian Talmud, which, as from what I gather,
one of two versions of the Talmud. I think they're
(23:23):
like eight or twelve books. It's a lot, yeah, like
five thousand pages. And these these guys would they would
remember the Talmud so precisely that a case study from
nineteen seventeen based on eyewitness accounts said that you could
put a pin on a word on one page and
(23:44):
push the pin through, say fifty pages, and they could
tell you the word that that pin came out on
the fifty pages ahead. So that's geography too kind of.
That's a really good example of a potential photographic memory, right,
but also example of obsession. Um. I did a little
more reading on them too. They were known as uh
(24:05):
Numonists for neumonic. It's interesting. That's just I don't know,
I think that might have been a early Eastern European
and Russian name for someone with amazing memory because the Sheerschewski. Um.
He was written about as a patient just by the
(24:28):
pseudonym s by a psychologist, very famous psychologist named Alexander Luria,
and he he titled his paper book The Mind of
a New Honest. So I wonder if that was like
an old timey word for like somebody with an amazing memory.
That's probably word? What is that? Namu? Oh yeah, I
like I like yours more? Th Another thing is that
(24:52):
a lot of times when someone you might think or
they claim to have a photographic memory, it's on a
very specific, um thing that they are obsessed with, Like
a chess player may be able to memorize like these
incredibly complex sequences or games that they played, but may
not have a great memory otherwise of other things. I
can't remember their anniversary, asked their wives. Yeah you know
(25:15):
for sure? Um, who's this other guy? John Van Newman?
He was a mathematical genius and he could recite chapters
of books and pages of the phone book. But apparently
he was like that was sort of where it ended.
He didn't have like a memory outside of like these
very specific things. Right. He also never claimed to have
(25:35):
a photographic memory, which is pretty cool. Because if anybody
could claim that he was definitely one of them, and
he was a polymath just straight up genius in general,
it's a great varied thinker. Yeah. He I read somewhere
that he used to tell jokes with his dad in
in classical Greek at age six, which I mean, if
(25:56):
you're doing that at age six with your dad, it's
a specific type of household you're being raised. And yeah,
that Stephen Wiltshire guy is pretty interesting. Um. I remember
seeing something on him a while ago. I think we
talked about him in the Thinking Cap episode two. Yeah,
that might have been it. He's from London and is
has autism and he's the guy who, you know it
(26:16):
takes a helicopter ride over Berlin Lands and then draws
it and like astonishing detail. Yes, but and it is astonishing.
But and people put him up as an example of
photographic memory. There are flaws in the recollection, in the telling.
These are renderings are not architecturally precise. Yeah, but still,
(26:38):
I mean better than it's astonishing. No. I think what's
astonishing is is the art. And I think people should
just like lay off the photographic memory part of it
and just say Stephen Wiltscher is an amazing artist who
I can see a scene and encapsulated on paper with
ease or seeming ease. Yeah, And then you really can't
start a conversation about memory of any kind without talking
(27:01):
about Kim Peak, who we mentioned earlier, who was again
the the the inspiration for rain Man, but was much
more friendly, much more outgoing, much happier than rain Man was. Yeah,
he was a real jerk. He was real. He wasn't
a jerk, but he was much more introverted. Kim Peek
was much more happy, go lucky, and like very talkative
(27:23):
and curious and um. For a very long time he
was considered to have had autism, but now they think
he had f G syndrome, which is a very specific
genetic disorder UM that's characterized by people who are friendly, inquisitive, hyperactive,
and have a short attention span. And from what I understand,
that describes Kim Peak to a key to T yeah,
(27:47):
not a key to a KP. He would his his
whole thing. I mean, he had a great memory, but
he had basically memorized the calendar. And when you say calendar,
you mean like that means the calendar of the past. Tuesday.
Everybody knows that. Yeah, but what day was, uh, you know,
(28:09):
July first, nineteen seventy seven. He can say, well, that
was the Thursday, and on this state, these things happened.
That kind of memory, yeah, which is pretty astounding in
and of itself. But he was also able to do
things like read the phone book two pages at a time. Yeah.
Now that's just off the charts. This is he may
(28:30):
be the only human being who is ever born capable
of doing. Yeah. His left eye was reading one page
and his right eye would read another page. Okay, astounding
that he could do that just visually optically. Yes, he
would retain this thing, and he could tell you the
phone number of somebody's name. You went back and and
said what is you know, what is John von Newman's
(28:51):
phone number? And he'd say the phone and would be like, really,
I don't want to call him. I'll talk you about
to say John bon Jovi for a second. I'm excited.
I have a joke in Greek. Yeah, I mean that's
that is. Let's let it that part out really, okay, Um. Really,
here's the thing with Peak though, is we talked a
lot about the Corpus colossum in the uh what's it
(29:15):
called restless hand syndrome, alien Han syndrome one of our
early early podcasts. That's right, I forgot that showed up
with the corpus colossum. We talked about it a bunch
of a bunch of shows. But that's what connects it
to hemispheres. Kimpek does not have a corpus colossum, like
not severed, not cut apart, not partial. It did not
grow in his brain. So he has two independent hemispheres
(29:38):
of his brain. And so when his left eye is
inputting all this stuff and his right eyes inputting all
this stuff, his brain can recall it separately but together.
That's just astounding. Is he still with us? No, he
died a few years ago. I don't remember of what
and like he was in his sixties, I believe. All right,
Well r I p MR Peak and let's take a
(30:00):
break now, and then we'll talk about a woman named
Jil Price right after this, all right, as promised, we're
(30:31):
gonna talk about Jill Price, who I remember from the
news in two thousand six is when she kind of
hit hit the big time with the news and she
was the one that she's called the woman who cannot
forget and pretty accurately because she has an audit. Well
they now they could call it a couple of things. Now, Um,
(30:52):
I saw H S a M. Highly superior autobiographical memory,
and then another condition called hyperthsmea thymesia hyperthymesia, Yeah with
a y in seventy that was this misspelled? Okay? Um
and to delete my correction, And hyper means excessive obviously,
(31:16):
and then thymesis is remembering, so it's excessive remembering. I like,
highly superior autobiographical memory though, yeah, and I saw where
they found they know of at least sixty other people
that have H S a M. Whereas this said only
to other people have been diagnosed with hyperthymesia. Right, it's
the same thing, it is. It's the exact same thing. Okay,
(31:37):
So are there sixty people or they're three? There's sixty
one from what I understand. Okay, Well, she can't forget stuff,
and these people apparently, you know, if you go back
and say what were you doing, you know, fourteen years
ago and two months in two days, or give them
a date date usually and then they will be able
to say what they did, what they were wearing, who
(31:57):
they were with what was on TV. Yeah, but the
thing is, so this is so you say, okay, great, fine,
we found these are the people with photographic memories. Not really,
because it's highly superior autobiographical memory, and that is a
very specific kind of memory. It's a type of episodic memory.
Episodic memories are personal memories, memories you generate as opposed
(32:19):
to semantic memory, which is memories that you make of
things like um uh, a car has two axles or
something stupid like that, like a fact that you recall,
rather than an autobiographical memory. So the the semantic memory
is normal in in people with HSAM or hyperthymesia. It's
(32:40):
the autobiographical stuff that is astoundingly photographic. Yeah, and people
also tried after she came out and made a you know,
kind of a big splash on the news programs, there
were people trying to poke holes in her condition, saying
that like, well, starting in her teenage year, she started
keeping these obsessively detailed diaries every day as well. Um,
(33:05):
which sure that can help. But just because you write
an obsessively detailed diary every day doesn't mean you're gonna
remember it five years later, right, No, that's that's exactly
the point, right. Yeah, maybe she is even using nemonics
to solidify it even further. But the fact that you
can give her a date at random and she can
remember it without consulting her her journal, um, it's pretty impressive.
(33:27):
It's definitely its own thing. And there's there's a pretty
widespread consensus that this is a real condition. But the
fact that you said it, she she keeps an obsessively
organized journal. Um. They believe it's possible that it's linked
to obsessive compulsive disorder. That the brains of people with
(33:49):
hyperthymesia UM have have the same traits, the same structures, um,
that people who have o c D have, and they'll
very frequently have kind of this co morbid collection of
stuff or um. They have traits that somebody, yeah, somebody
with o c D might have. I also wonder if
it has anything to do with narcissism. Oh really, I
(34:13):
don't know, man. It's autobiographical. Yeah, like they remember everything
about their life, but they might not be able to
tell you, like you know who the president is. But
the okay, if it is narcissism, it's a mass a kid, No,
it's a massochistic. That's the one where you're bad to yourself, right,
(34:33):
mean to yourself, because this is sort of a curse. UM.
So if you if you see interviews with Jill Price,
she's not a happy person by any stretch of the
imagination because part of this condition is not being able
to forget like emotions attached to things. Yeah, she she
after a very long time, met a man and married
(34:55):
him and they were very very close. Like she she
said later that that he just got her. He is
the first person to ever just get her and accept
her for who she was. Um. Other family and friends
would be like, can you not just let this go?
Can you not get over something that happened twenty years ago?
And she's like, no, I really can't. This guy just
accepted her and then of course he dies young from
(35:16):
I think cancer or something like that. So UM, rather
than going through the morning period in grieving like a
person normally would time healing all wounds, that does not
apply to somebody or hyperthiamesia because when they think of
that day again or something reminds them of that person
that and the memory of them is recalled, they experienced
(35:39):
that same pain like they experience. UM. The first time.
It happens forever. They cannot forget. It does not fade
like a sci fi movie basically, but it's a real thing.
Was the Tom Cruise thing? I repeat, rain Man, Yeah,
that's it. Uh. You know who else has hyperthymesia or
(36:00):
highly superior autobiographical memory? I think I know this because
you talked about her at length and the podcast. To
remember what I'll give you. I'll give you a one
degree of separation and you'll figure it out. Okay, don't
say Kevin Bacon Tony Danza what no, I didn't say. Sorry,
(36:23):
that was not a bad Tony Danza. Mona no um oh,
oh that's right. Uh. Yes, what's her name? Lisa Milana? No? No,
Mary Lou Henner from Taxi A Lissa Milana. Well wouldn't she?
And she just looked up from the gallery and the
congressional hearing and who me? I forgot about the taxi Mary?
(36:46):
That's right, Mary Lee has like has it? You can
say you'll give her a date or even like a
taxi episode. She'll start reciting lines the other person's line.
She'll talk about what she's wearing in the scene. Stuff
from the seventies. It's really impressive. She has the opposite experience,
though she loves the the the whole thing, like it's
a gift to her, whereas it's a curse to jil Price.
(37:09):
My memory is weird because I will and I'm sure
we talked about this in the other memory episodes, but
I can have the worst memory on the planet or
the best, and it all just depends on whatever detail
it is. It's either in in the old brain or
it's not. Yeah, Like I can recall some very specifically
things that people are like, how in the world do
you remember that? You know? The thing that bothers me
(37:29):
about this is we have had so much information passed
through our brains and I retained so little of it.
It's almost like I really wish I had more of
it in there. Yeah, it's just not though. I mean,
I guess it is if you drag it, but I
can't bring it to it to memory very easily. Yeah,
(37:50):
to find that couples though, whether that's you and I
or us and our individual wives can complement each other
with their memories. Yeah, and your abilities, like I'm really
good at remembering certain things, and Emily is really good
at remembering other types of things and together it's usually
works out. It's a whole person, yeah, basically, But you
(38:13):
do that too. You remember stuff that I don't remember,
like Mary lew Henterer, and the list goes on and on.
You remember way more than I do. But I don't
remember nearly as much as I should, I think, or
that I wish I did. I don't deal in shouts anymore. Chuck, Right,
so should we talk about um uh, Charles Stroemeyer, John Merritt,
and Elizabeth Sure. So this was a little bit wrong,
(38:38):
But the way I understood from what you sent me
as a follow up is that Charles Stroemeyer was the
one who did this initial initial research at Harvard in
the nineteen seventies. Is that right? Okay, So this guy
plays ads in newspapers. He was trying to do some
studies on photographic memory, and all these ads were were
images of random dots. And you could take a test
(38:59):
your cell just by looking at these dots very briefly
and then trying to reproduce them. And if you did
a really good job, you would follow up by getting
in touch with him saying, Hey, I nailed I nailed
your test, dude, talk to me I do the turtle
on the matchbook just right, remember the turtle and the
turtle night. Yeah, and that there was a pirate too, right,
What was that all about? It was like an art
(39:21):
correspondence course where you learn to draw through the mail.
Oh interesting, I think we talked about that on another episode.
Surely we have, I think. So sorry for derailing you
with the turtle thing. Now, that's okay. But that was
the long and short of what he was trying to
do and how he was trying to recruit subjects. And
I believe he got what like thirty people we're successful,
(39:43):
fifteen of which he was impressed enough by to go
to their house and follow up with. And one person
he really followed up with. He did he found out
of the fifteen, none of them had photographic memory. But
then later on he came across a woman from a
different study entirely named Elizabeth. And here's the thing. This
(40:06):
is nuts man. I he figured out Stromyer figured out
that if you took remember the three d um so
in the color Blind episode, Yeah, the magic image or
whatever where you could see the sailboat and the big
thing of dots. Right, So this thing was it didn't
have to do with color. It had to do with
(40:27):
overlaying the dots to create a three D image. So
you need two sets of dots and when you put
them together, they'll create like a magic I poster kind
of thing. So what Stroemyer figured out is you could
take these two layers and separate them. Show one of
the layers to somebody you're testing for photographic memories. They
really get a look at this. Okay, now I'm gonna
(40:48):
wait like a day, and then I'll show you the
second layer. Bring to mind that first layer you saw,
and overlay it in your mind, and see if you
can tell me what the three D images. That's amazing.
It is amazing. And stoe Meyer found one person who
could do it, a woman named Elizabeth, and he married her.
And he married her, and the weird thing is he
(41:08):
wrote like this whole though, this whole right up in
the journal Nature. Then he married her and no more
testing after that. So took her off the market every
way he did. But they so they're like, well, we can't,
we can't say that this is definitely a case of
photographic memory. If it were true, this would be the
closest thing to photographic memory. Anyone's ever come up with. Now,
(41:30):
Kim Pete holds the title, yet Elizabeth is just could
be the key, right could probably not though I saw
that in some follow up tests. This would explain why
he took her off the market. That, um, she couldn't
she she she couldn't do it. Really. Yeah, But then
this guy John Merritt, he came along later and used that, uh,
(41:54):
use those studies for his own purposes. He did. He
found that nobody could do this, that nobody is able
to do that. But they did figure out that, hey,
this makes a pretty good test to find um identic rs. Yeah,
because you don't. You don't show them one layer and
then take away the other layer and ask him a
day later. You show them one layer, ask him to
(42:15):
hold it in their mind, and then put the other
layer underneath it. And if you're an identic or, you
are typically able to see in three D and you
can go do this online. Actually, just don't blink, don't blink,
and don't say what it is you're looking at, like
Michael Caine always says, Oh, I've never heard him say that,
And that was one of he did these kind of
corny how to active video series I think at one
(42:37):
point and Letterman used to play bits of them because
they were really funny. If one of them was the
secret to great acting don't blink? Was was he trying
to be funny? The Letterman would played for laughs, don't
blink and he would say he would show you know
scenes and he's like, look at me, I'm not blinking,
And then Letterman would say don't blink like out of
the blue fifty times the rest of the song. Probably
(43:00):
love that guy. Yeah, ah, you got anything else, No, sir,
I've got one more lex Luthor. But he supposedly had
photographic memory. He's not real, Wellogh all the more likely
that he had photographic memory. Well, if you want to
know more about photographic memory, go take that Ideker test.
You'll love it. The Mr T thing is just back
(43:22):
to the podcast. Maybe I pity the fool that tripped
me on fifty seven Street on July. Well, Chuck made
a Mr. T reference, which means then it's time for listening.
Maw uh. This is I think just some some warm gratitudes.
(43:43):
Hey guys, I'm sure you get these emails all the time,
but I'd be remiss if I didn't thank you for
all your wonderful work, had a really tough time with
mental illness, and there have been a lot of nights
that your wonderful show is staved off panic attacks or worse.
Thank you for keeping me calm and educated. Thank you
for making me feel safe even in perilelus circumstances. Thank
you for giving me something to talk about when my
depression has kept me in a fog Without your massive
(44:04):
backlog up seemingly endless supply of fresh, fascinating subjects that
would surely be lost. Spent some time researching that can
truly appreciate just how much time and energy goes into
becoming familiar enough with something to explain it as succinctly
as you guys do. You are superheroes and rock stars.
You have truly saved me. Kindest and warmest regards, Georgia.
(44:24):
And here's the thing, everyone, I may have read this before,
but let's leave it in there, because if I did
read this before and forgot it, it will have been
within the last six or seven weeks, and it will
be a very funny ending to the memory episode either way.
The listener mails, so nice, you read it twice. Yeah,
(44:45):
that's appropriate. Uh, well, thanks a lot Georgia two times over.
Maybe thank you Chuck for that great ending. If you
want to get in touch with this, you can go
on to stuff you Should Know dot com, check out
our social links, and you can also send us an
email to podcasts at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff
(45:06):
you Should Know is a production of i Heeart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.