Neuropsychology Central

[Edward]

Hi everybody, I was wondering if anybody was interested in the topic of photographic memory. The fact that people have an highly sensitive perception of facts in the world.

It is assumed to be hand in hand with people who have a very unfiltered perception of things around them. It's fascinating to read about stories of people who have no problem studying for a course in just a few hours and make accelent grades. It is said that people with ADHD are particularly prone to display photographic memory, cause they are able to concentrate fully in an almost fanatic way on a topic of their interest. Also people with Autism, who are not capable to describe events emotionally and relate emotionally to events, display this ability.

I was reading a story about a boy who was doing his exam. And he described all the things he was thinking about, and man that were a lot of things. When we taking our exam, we just shut our minds of the outer world whilst this guy was monitoring almost everything. He was calculating how much time he would need for the questions, he was counting people that left the room. He was observing behavior of his co-students, and so on and so on. While we throw our head backwards to think about the answer. This guy knows the answer, and thinks about doing better things with his time. Cause the exam was too easy.

Is anybody concerned with human memory, and is anybody concerned with people with Autism. And please say something about this topic. I'm rather interested.

P.S. Excuse my English I'm from the Netherlands.

[Helix]

Hoi Edward,

I once saw a BBC documentary on a savant, who displayed the ability of "photographic" memory. He flew above London in a helicopter and being back home he drew an excact three dimensional map of the city, with virtually every roof on the right place and with the correct spatial relationships between different (salient) locations. This is really fascinating, but it's also sad, beacuse on the other hand he wasn't able to manage life. A constant and unfiltered flux of information doesn't seem to be something adorable. These people, well some of them most of the time, aren't able to sort out the relevant information from this "stream of consciousness" that we all perceive but don't experience.

The "life story" about a guy with an indefinite capacity of memory is given by Luria in his excellent book "The mind of a mnemonist". It not only gives fascinating insights into the astonishing working of the protagonist's memory, but also into the way this ability influences his personality. This guy, who also displayed synesthesia, could recall a list of nonsense words or a poem written in a foreign language 30 years later and remember them even if not explicitly instructed to do so, but he was hardly able to read a book or follow a conversation, because he then got overridden by his vivid imagination and constant flux of impressions. He couldn't filter out relevant information and suppress all the rest.

One could say that his superior neurocognitive ability disabled him in everyday life.

Groeten,
Helix

[Edward]

Hoi Helix,

It's nice to meet an European colleague on this forum, I wonder what the Americans have to say about this topic.

You told me a fascinating story indeed. And it's interesting that you mention the term spatial memory. It seems that people with highly sensitive perception have this division between Auditory and Spatial processes. The boy I told you of, who was taking the exam seemed to be suffering Auditory processes. So he was hearing every possible sound. He wouldn't be able to drive a car for example, cause he would perceive every little sound that would be on his way. And even the tiniest soundwaves would disturb him.

Another thing for him to distract his mind after a hard day of work (perceiving), he would watch his favorite movie, over and over again. So he didn't have to process anything for a while. And also he said after a five hour conversation with his friend, he had to lay down for a while, so he could think about all the things that were said. So he has an almost "perfect" accoustic memory. I wonder if there are people with tactic deficits too. They will be less common I suppose.

It's true what you say about the tragic of these people. And the harder part is that people confronted with these "gifted" human beings, think they don't have a problem at all. And mostly, they can't keep up any social relationships, cause they catch themselves staring in the eyes of their conversation partner. (which is scaring), but people don't realise they do this cause they don't want any perceptional stimulation. Cause they're tired so to speak.

Yet, this controversy between talent and tragedy, also is part of what makes this subject so fascinating.

I'm interested what is geriatry, and what is your experience in the field of memory?

Groeten,

Edward.

[phil480]

Another fascinating thing about Photographic eidedicts is they do extremely well on multiple choice or fill in the blank tests but they do very poorly on essay examinations becuase they have the inability to summarize information. They can't differentiate the important from the more mundane. I also read Luria's case study of "S", and that's the only case I've heard of in which the person uses synesthesia as a mnemonic device. What I found most interesting were the sensations he reported while reading or listening to music. He stated words had different weights to them, some letters felt heavier than others. Different musical notes or tones had different colors or even tastes associated with them. I wonder what a B# tastes like?

If you guys are interested in American research on memory you may want to check out Alan Baddeley, Steven Schacter, Elizabeth Loftus, Steven Ceci, Endel Tulving, Fergus Craik, Robert Lockhart, Wilder Penfield, and Sperling just to name a few. The big areas in the U.S right now are parallel distributed processing models of memory, autobiographical memory, recovered memory, and with the World Trade Center disaster, there should be some new flashbulb memory research being produced.

Do either of you European guys know what treatments for Autistic children are being used in Europe?

Edward, you asked about "geriatry", did you possibly mean to say geriatrics? If so, that is the study of the elderly, most often people in their 60's and up.

Cheers Fellas
_________________
We are the music makers... and the dreamers of the dreams -Willy Wonka

[Edward]

Hi Phil,

Fascinating indeed. I'm reading the case of S. at the moment, thanks to Helix. When I finished reading we could share some thoughts about the book. Thanks for the list of American Researchers, I know most of them. All our textbooks are american in Holland. But there seems to be an elite group of people working on the minds of Autistic People. Like Allan Snyder (Australia) and Beate Hermelin for example. They work among other things on the class of people known as "autistic savants", like the story of Stephen Wiltshire, The boy who draws buildings. Oliver Sacks, also wrote a lot about this phenomenon.

And it's these stories I'm very much interested in. Also I've read about cognitive methods to help autistic children (to give an answer to your question). One of those methods, was a little detective game, in which the children particpated in a fictious problem world. It is these changes (problems) that upsets them so thoroughly. And now the assistants help the children to solve the problems in a steplike (cognitive) fashion, whilst every sign of intuition is lost. The first step of that process, was to determine what the problem was, which seems - easy as it sounds - to be a hard task for them. Furthermore, I don't know too much about the methods yet.

So maybe someone who's reading this, and has expertise in this field, could share his knowledge with us.

Thanks for the information about geriatrics (my english is lousy sometimes).

Cheers