Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Lewis Thomson on 02/02/2018 09:41:23
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Leo asks:
What is the science behind having a photographic memory, and is it possible to improve your ability to remember things?
What do you think?
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There's probably not really any such thing as photographic memory, and no memory competition has ever been won by someone claiming to possess one.
People with very good memories generally 'link' things together using mnemonic techniques.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic
However, mnemonics, while they work extremely well for some things, such as putting names to faces, they can be cumbersome to use and time consuming to learn.
I personally think people with synesthesia may have above average memories. Synesthesia gives you a built-in extra thing you can use to help you remember things. For example if, with a particular synesthesia, a word appears red, then remembering it was red will give you a clue as to what the word was later on.
I used to have a ridiculously awful memory, but I picked up a book on mnemonics, learnt it, and afterwards I find I'm easily able to learn lists of things, like shopping lists, PIN numbers etc. with very high accuracy.
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In my opinion there may be 4 main principles to remember anything:
1) Build your palace
2) Construct the images
3) Place the images in the palace
4) Go for a walk to recall
I have researched this topic in my dissertation work in details