Eidetic memory - what type of memory is it, how to develop it

Eidetic memory in psychology is the ability to remember and reproduce images and situations from life in detail. This type is otherwise called photographic memory or phenomenal visual memory. Many people would like to have it. However, not every person knows that in psychology there is still no consensus on whether eidetic memory is a norm or a deviation. Let's try to understand what eidetic memory is and how to develop it. Is it necessary to do this and what is eidetics?

Definition of the concept

Eidetism is the ability to accurately and in detail describe those images and situations that remain in the past. Moreover, we are talking about visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory images. Who researched and described the type of eidetic memory? M. P. Kononova, P. P. Blonsky, N. D. Shreider, S. L. Rubinshtein, Artemov, Strakhov, E. Jensch, L. S. Vygotsky, A. R. Luria made their contributions. But the phenomenon was first described by the Serbian scientist V. Urbancic (1907).

Eidetic memory is a special type of figurative memory that allows you to instantly remember any images. The name is derived from the Greek word εἶδος, which means “image, appearance.” A person with such a memory only needs to look at the picture once, and then he will be able to describe in detail what he saw.

For example, a student with a photographic memory can look at the board once and then reproduce the formula from memory in a notebook during a test. Or a person with such a memory feature looks at the page of a book and then reproduces the text from memory, accurate to the word.

In addition, an eidetic person is able to again experience tactile and olfactory sensations and hear sounds based on one visual image. Moreover, the subsequent replay of situations from the past is no different from the initial real life.

This is what the mechanism of photographic memory looks like:

1. A person saw a picture (a life event, a still from a movie, a lecture on a blackboard, etc.) and remembered it in general.
2. A little later, accompanying images were deposited in memory: sounds, colors, background images, individual actions of the participants (the person himself did not notice this). Photographic memory works only if the individual awakens a sincere and strong interest in something, if something impressed him.
3. In the future, the person describes everything he saw. He goes from the general to the specific. Eidetics remember details that no one else would notice. For example, when describing an accident, they will name the driver's eye color, the victim's clothing, moles and scars on the participants, etc. Eidetics remember all this not only a few minutes after the incident, but also years later.

Important! The essence of eidetism is that a person does not comprehend what he sees, he simply “photographs” the picture and then reproduces it. Everything happens by itself, involuntarily.

The ability in the form of eidetic memory also has its disadvantages. A person remembers in detail all important events in life, including unpleasant and traumatic ones. In addition, eidetic people often have problems in the emotional sphere. It’s as if a person turns into a computer. And if we are talking about innate photographic memory, then in most cases it is combined with developmental disorders. For example, many children with autism have eidetic memory.

Training information reproduction

However, eidetic memory is not only about remembering, but also about recalling what you remember. Therefore, we must learn to recall not only what

what happened an hour ago or the day before, but also “things of days gone by.”

One of the exercises is to cling to some bright event and try to unwind the chain: what happened before, what during, what after

. Try to remember the details, restore the picture and sequence of events as if you were there again. The further you continue your training, the less significant the “starting” point may be for you.

Try for yourself various mnemonics (for example, the mnemonics we presented for memorizing numbers) - having moved to the same automatic level, they will help you consolidate this or that information for a long time.

The general development of memory will also be very useful.

(not only visual), as well as general training of brain activity - neurobics, learning languages, solving logic puzzles and even crosswords: don’t let your brain idle, and it will show you what you are capable of.

Development

Photographic memory can be innate or acquired. In the first case, this is due to abnormalities in brain development. In the second case, this is due to targeted work. Eidetics is the name of the science of the development of eidetic memory. Psychologists identify several approaches to the development of eidetic memory.

According to Aivazovsky's method:

1. Select an item, thing or object. Living or inanimate, the main thing is not abstract.
2. For a couple of minutes, carefully study the object, delve into every little detail, observe it.
3. Close your eyes, try to abstract yourself from the outside world and noise. Imagine this image in front of you. Repeat the details that you noticed, mentally draw them in front of you.
4. Open your eyes and compare the real object and the one you reproduced. Are there significant differences?
5. Repeat the exercise until you can visualize the object as accurately as possible.
6. Gradually make the task more difficult for yourself, for example, reduce the time spent studying the object.

Neurobics (aerobics for the brain):

1. Change your route regularly to your usual place. For example, before work or a cafe where you regularly have lunch. Try to carefully study the routes and remember them.
2. Do familiar things with your left hand (if you are left-handed, with your right). For example, try holding a toothbrush, spoon, or pen in your left hand.
3. Watch TV without sound. Try to understand what is being said by the general atmosphere, setting, gestures and movements.

Eidetics helps not only in the development of photographic memory, but also in strengthening memory as such. And also with the help of training you can prevent the occurrence of Alzheimer's disease, senile dementia and similar pathologies.

Interesting! Congenital eidetism is often associated with autism, schizophrenia, epilepsy, mental retardation and other mental disorders.

Block 2. Memory strategy

1. Eliminate distractions. When studying material that you need to remember, try to organize the process so that nothing distracts you.
2. Use visual associations. When remembering information, associate it with images that are easy to remember. One option is the “mind palace” of a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, created by the BBC.
3. Repeat. This does not mean memorization, but repetition, which is suitable for remembering a small amount of information at once, for example, a name. The technique is this: after your interlocutor pronounces the name, repeat it to yourself in different forms: Alexander - Sasha - Shurik - Sanya. The second option is to immediately use this name in speech, directly when addressing a person.
4. Find more detailed useful information about memory development in the training on our website.

Degrees of eidetic memory

The development of eidetic memory goes through five stages:

1. Reproduction from memory is possible only with the image fixed.
2. Reproduction of images without additional fastening, but this only applies to weak images.
3. Reproducing more vivid images and details.
4. Involuntary memorization of important images with their further clear reproduction. At this stage, tactile, auditory, taste, and motor memories (sensory modalities) appear.
5. The highest degree, in which a person remembers everything in detail and very vividly, feels all the events of the past as in the present.

In the latter case, it is customary to distinguish two more types of memory: B and T. The first group includes those memories that a person controls and calls up from the depths of memory. Images from group T are not amenable to personal control; they emerge chaotically anywhere and at any time.

Interesting! Group T memories sometimes turn into hallucinations.

Reviews and comments

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Key words:1Self-knowledge

Eidetic memory training

Is it possible to become eidetic? Yes, photographic memory can be trained and developed. However, exercises for children and adults will be slightly different.

In children

At what age does eidetic memory appear? In senior preschool - junior school age. Therefore, the optimal age for training eidetic memory in children is 3–7 years. Otherwise, eidetic memory will be replaced by cause-and-effect remembering. And here there is no time for detailed images. However, according to other studies, the peak of eidetic behavior occurs between 11 and 16 years of age. The optimal solution is to train your memory from early childhood and throughout your life.

So, what exercises are suitable:

1. Visual drawing. The child is asked to answer the question “What does a number or letter look like?” and complete this image. For example, the letter B looks like a boat sail, and the number 3 looks like a snake. It is important not to limit the child - even if he comes up with unusual images, fantastic animals.
2. Mental drawing. The child is asked to memorize a certain verse, but when memorizing, he must imagine everything that he is talking about. Parents can help as much as possible, for example, splashing a little water on the child’s hand if the poem is about a river.

If these exercises are aimed at older preschoolers and younger schoolchildren, then universal techniques are suitable for other children. For example, the game “Find 10 differences” or this game:

• the child carefully examines the room for a minute, then goes out the door;
• during the player’s absence, other participants (classmates, parents, friends - anyone) change something in the room environment or in themselves, for example, exchange clothes with someone;
• the player returns and must name all the changes.

An important condition of the game: you need to preserve as much as possible the primary conditions of the picture that the player remembers. That is, for example, the poses of the participants should be the same. If someone sits differently, then this is already considered a change.

In adults

You can and should train your memory throughout your life, and it is important to pay attention to all types of memory and do different exercises. The same principle applies here as in sports: in order for all muscles to grow, you need to constantly increase the load and change the set of exercises.

So, exercises for training eidetic memory in adults:

1. When leaving the house anywhere, be it on the way to work, going to the store or walking, count the houses, windows, cars, trees you meet. Study their color, shape, and other features. Next time, reproduce this from memory: “Yeah, now there will be a red house, it’s the fifth one on this street.” And compare your answers with reality. This exercise has the added benefit of developing awareness. Do you pay attention to everyday little things or do you spend most of your life on autopilot? I think it's the second one. And this exercise will teach you to live here and now.
2. Practice with texts. For this you will need an assistant. Print out any text you understand on a landscape sheet. Please read it carefully. Ask a friend to add a couple of logical sentences or words to the text and print it out again. Read the new text, try to find extra words and expressions.
3. Every time you try to remember some information, imagine it in images. Choose the most unusual associations. Come up with something fantastic.
4. For the general development of attention, memory, intelligence and creative thinking, it is useful to read words and sentences backwards.

Important! Eidetics is the main means of developing and strengthening memory. As auxiliary means, psychologists recommend giving up bad habits, mastering self-regulation techniques, learning how to deal with stress, playing sports and systematically loading the brain (crosswords, tasks, puzzles, etc.).

Block 1. Lifestyle changes

1. Learn to cope with stress. Anxiety, depression and anger have been shown to increase cortisol levels in the brain. This can cause damage to cells in the hippocampus, the area of ​​the brain responsible for storing data in memory.
2. Exercise, keep your brain in good shape: don’t put down the newspaper with a crossword puzzle, don’t give up playing board games, study a foreign language.
3. Play sports and spend time on physical activity. This way, the brain will receive the necessary oxygen and beneficial nutrients.
4. Avoid bad habits. This is especially true for alcohol abuse and smoking.

Examples of eidetic memory

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a phenomenal memory. At the age of three, he memorized what his father and sister played, and then reproduced it with precision. There is also a famous case when Mozart was in the Sistine Chapel and memorized a very complex piece. When he got home, he wrote it down. The original sheet music for this piece was kept in a secret place. Upon further comparison of Mozart's recordings and the original, their complete coincidence was established.

Another famous composer, Sergei Rachmaninov, had eidetic memory. One day another composer, Alexander Glazunov, came to his parents’ house. He presented his new work. What a surprise it was for Glazunov and everyone present when, immediately after this, Rachmaninov sat down at the piano and repeated everything exactly to the note.

Another striking example of eidetic memory is the domestic chess player Alexander Alekhine. In 1934 he became the winner of the blind games competition. In addition, the chess player remembered step by step each of the games he had played throughout his life. This is not Alexander's only ability. After the first reading, he could remember 10 or more pages, remembered and recognized faces perfectly, and knew six languages. In conversations with other people, he named details and situations that the interlocutors themselves did not remember. Alexander remembered every little detail, his images were very vivid.

Pop culture heroes

Television characters with eidetic memory, including Special Agent Fox Mulder from Top Secret, Batman villain Bane, Detective Adrian Monk from Monk, Dr. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds, Dr. Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap, Dr. Lexie Gray from Grey's Anatomy, Dr. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, Shawn Spencer from Psych, Olivia Dunham from Fringe, Mike Ross from Suits, Micah Bering from Warehouse 13, Mozzie from White Collar, Olive Doyle from Disney's M.U.R.A.H. ", Seven of Nine from "Star Trek: Voyager", Susan Ivanova from the series "Babylon 5", Brick Huck from the series "Middle Men" and Charlie Andrews from the film "Heroes".

In the Swedish series Millennium (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) by Stieg von Larson, the hacker heroine Lisbeth Salander had an eidetic memory. In the movie Good Will Gunting, starring Matt Damon, the main character Will Gunting had both an extraordinary IQ and an eidetic memory.

Much of the story of Terry Pratchett's humorous fantasy Lesser Gods is based on hypermnesia, the eidetic memory of the newcomer Brutha. He remembered every moment of his life in perfect detail, even the exact position and timing of an individual's steps. He could not read, but he could produce perfect reproductions of the documents he had seen from his memory because he remembered the shape and size of the letters. When he witnessed dubious events and received an order to forget her, he could not understand the order because he had no concept of the “process of forgetting.” When asked what he remembers first, he replied: “A bright light, and then someone hit me.”

Famous people with eidetic memory

History knows many examples of people with innate or acquired eidetic memory. Here are just a few of them:

1. T. Roosevelt. Every day I trained my memory and read three books.
2. N. Tesla. Since childhood, he had a phenomenal memory.
3. John Paul II. Knew 21 languages ​​and 100 dialects.
4. Kim Peak. A simple, but at the same time unusual resident of America. Kim read two pages in parallel and immediately remembered what he read.
5. Ferdinand Marcos. He memorized, reproduced or retold text of any complexity and volume.
6. Julius Caesar. He had an excellent memory for faces and knew all the soldiers.
7. Meryl Henner. Another ordinary, but unique American resident who remembered her entire childhood in detail.
8. Mary Elizabeth Bowser. A legendary intelligence officer who memorized and accurately conveyed all the information she learned.

Methods

The main tools of eidetics are associations and acroverbal technique.

Working with associations

It is carried out in two directions: the chain method and the method of visual associations.

Chain method

The bottom line: you can connect even the most distant objects with each other using logical chains.

Exercise: 10-15 completely different words are selected (absolutely any: button, fast food, government, law, cactus, grandfather, finger, pleasure, literacy, tape). Assignment: compose them into a coherent story or just a logical chain. Sample text: The government has issued a law to get the maximum pleasure from fast food, for which they will issue certificates with cacti. Grandfather was so happy about this that he cut his finger and had to wrap it with tape.

According to eidetics, the more awkward the logical chain is, the brighter the eidetic images will be. It’s easy to forget the gray bunny and the yellow sun, because they are typical and everyday. But a letter with a cactus, a law on fast food, a grandfather with a finger wrapped in tape - this is fresh and unusual. The result is that all 10 words will remain in memory.

Visual associations

The essence: linking the information that needs to be remembered to a specific place, person, situation. A kind of “anchoring” from NLP.

Application in practice. For example, when explaining topics in the Russian language “Etymology” or “Similar words”. The teacher shows the class a spindle and a clock and asks them to find something in common between them. Naturally, these are two completely different subjects that are in no way related to each other. But it turns out that the spindle is spinning like the hands on a clock. Therefore, historically the words spindle, spin and time are closely related and have the same root. In the future, the student will only need to remember these two things in order to reproduce this information.

Acroverbal method

Memory training using eidetics is rarely possible without it, although it is actively used by mnemonics, neurobics, NLP and other areas.

The bottom line: to make it easier to memorize educational material, it is “encrypted” into poems, various abbreviations, codes, songs and even jokes. Firstly, it turns out clearly. Secondly, it is fascinating and educational. Thirdly, it is easy to remember. The student easily learns two lines of a funny rhyme, which at the right moment evokes the necessary images and associations in his subconscious. And instead of rhyming, he tells the rule in the Russian language.

Techniques used:

• rhyme (“something, either, that, something - don’t forget to put a hyphen”);
• phrases from the first letters of the material (the colors of the rainbow in the famous saying about the hunter with a pheasant);
• connective (when studying the Pythagorean theorem, imagine in all its colors how he ran around his triangle and made a discovery);
• hook (for example, replacing numbers with objects);
• Cicero's method.

Acrostic poem for memorizing the colors of the rainbow
Eidetics has in its arsenal many other techniques for developing ideal visual memory, figurative-associative thinking and increasing concentration:

• casual observation;
• textual criticism;
• palindromes;
• gymnastics for the brain (neurobics).

By regularly practicing eidetics, you can well develop the ability to quickly and without coercion remember the maximum amount of a wide variety of information.

Eidetics for children

Eidetics acquires particular significance in classes with children. Their psyche and cognitive abilities are like plasticine. If you work on the development of visual memory and figurative-associative thinking, starting from an early age (for example, regularly organizing such classes for preschoolers), this will bring excellent results.

Such children quickly change their leading activity from play to learning and are actively involved in the school learning process. They rarely have problems learning material. This allows them to be successful in their studies and realize their creativity (under the influence of a well-formed eidetic imagination).

Lesson program (as an example)

An exemplary educational program for teachers of preschool educational institutions and primary school teachers and “Development of children’s memory using eidetic methods.”