Photographic memory

We talked in class today about capacity limitations in attention. Some students raised the question of whether certain savant individuals retain high-capacity iconic memory stores for longer than other people.

My own perspective is that there may be a small number of savants with such talents, but they are likely aided by rehearsal and chunking, both of which we will talk about next week.

There’s not a great deal of (recent) literature on this, but the following may be of interest. Foer discusses the case of “Elizabeth,” who, if the result were true, would be excellent proof of lengthy iconic memory without the assistance of rehearsal or chunking. That said, it seems likely it’s not true.

Martin, C. (2013). Memorable outliers. Nature.

Foer, J. (2006). Kaavya syndrome. Slate.

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