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Is it a blessing or a curse to have photographic (eidetic) memory…
Is it a blessing or a curse to have photographic (eidetic) memory
Defintion
called eidetic imagery: As especially clear and persistent form of memory that is quite rare sometimes known as photographic memory
What eidetic memory is
Eidetic images are visualised as being "outside the head" rather than in the "mind eyes"
Instead of seeing it tangibly they see it physically
Is different from adult imagery in which the fades away once the stimulus fades away
Eidetic people are able to see things with more detail and able to capture things compared to the rest, the rest discards certain details and organizes the rest into meaningful patterns.
Short term vs long term
Short term
Useful in some situations such as remembering content for exams
Long term
Is not good because their vivid imagery is sometimes cluttered and interferes with other things they want to think about
May remember bad/traumatic experiences more vividly compared to others
Commonly found in children not adults
A study found that people would tried to translate the image into words lost their eidetic abilities
Example
Research shows that in a rural village, illiterate adults still retained the ability to have eidetic memory while they found those who went to the city and became more literate lost their ability
A study from Nigeria further supports the idea that loss of eidetic ability may result from conflict between language skills and visual imagery:
Case studies also suggest a connection between the decline of eidetic imagery and the development of language skills: Eidetikers report that eidetic images are strongest when they remain mere images; describing an eidetic image in words makes it fade from memory, and eidetikers learn to exploit this fact to control their intrusive imagery