September 4, 2012
Amazing Memory
Memory is a collaborative effort within the brain. Image courtesy of Flickr user alles-schlumpf
At last count, at least 33 people in the world could tell you what they ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner, on February 20, 1998. Or who they talked to on October 28, 1986. Pick any date and they can pull from their memory the most prosaic details of that thin slice of their personal history.
Others, no doubt, have this remarkable ability, but so far only those 33 have been confirmed by scientific research. The most famous is probably actress Marilu Henner, who showed off her stunning recall of autobiographical minutiae on “60 Minutes” a few years ago.
What makes this condition, known as hyperthymesia, so fascinating is that it’s so selective. These are not savants who can rattle off long strings of numbers, Rainman-style, or effortlessly retrieve tidbits from a deep vault of historical facts. In fact, they generally perform no better on standard memory tests than the rest of us.
Nope, only in the recollection of the days of their lives are they exceptional.
Obsessing over details
How does science explain it? Well, the research is still a bit limited, but recently scientists at the University of California at Irvine, published a report on 11 people with superior autobiographical memory. They found, not surprisingly, that their brains are different. They had stronger “white matter” connections between their mid and forebrains, when compared with the control subjects. Also, the region of the brain often associated with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), was larger than normal.
In line with that discovery, the researchers determined that the study’s subjects were more likely than usual to have OCD tendencies. Many were collectors–of magazines, shoes, videos, stamps, postcards–the type of collectors who keep intricately detailed catalogs of their prized possessions.
The scientists are wary, as yet, of drawing any conclusions. They don’t know how much, or even if that behavior is directly related to a person’s autobiographical memory. But they’re anxious to see where this leads and what it might teach them about how memory works.
Is it all about how brain structures communicate? Is it genetic? Is it molecular? To follow the clues, they’re analyzing at least another three dozen people who also seem to have the uncanny ability to retrieve their pasts in precisely-drawn scenes.
Why our stories change
What about the rest of us? Our personal memories are much more erratic, some powerfully vivid, most frustratingly murky. And fluid.
That’s right, fluid. We like to believe that memories, once created, are like data filed away, constant and enduring. The challenge, we think, is in retrieving the uncorrupted files.
But recent research suggests that memory doesn’t work like that. Personal memories are more like mental reconstructions where the original details are contorted, at least to some degree, by who we are today.
Science writer Charles Fernyhough, author of the new book, Pieces of Light: The New Science of Memory, offered this explanation in The Guardian:
“When we look at how memories are constructed by the brain, the unreliability of memory makes perfect sense. In storyboarding an autobiographical memory, the brain combines fragments of sensory memory with a more abstract knowledge about events, and reassembles them according to the demands of the present.”
Recalling a memory, in fact, appears to be a collaborative effort of different parts of our brains. It also seems to be strengthened and modified each time it’s retrieved. Scientists have a term for this–reconsolidation. And they’ve found that a memory is not only a reflection of the original event, but also a product of each time you call it up. So memories, it turns out, aren’t fixed; they’re dynamic, reshaped by our current emotions and beliefs.
And that’s not a bad thing. As Fernyhough posits, the purpose of memory is about adapting and looking into the future as much as into the past. “There is only a limited evolutionary advantage in being able to reminisce about what happened to you,” he writes, “but there is a huge payoff in being able to use that information to work out what is going to happen next.”
The good and the bad
According to recent research, here are a few of the things that are good or bad for your memory:
- GOOD: Green tea: A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition concludes that green tea seems to activate the part of the brain associated with working memory.
- BAD: Junk food: Research at Brown University led scientists to conclude that a diet heavy in junk food can stop brain cells from responding properly to insulin and and that can hinder one’s ability to create new memories.
- GOOD: Frequent exercise: According to a study at Dartmouth University, exercise generally enhances the ability to remember. People in the study who exercised regularly improved their memory test scores, and this was particularly true for those who exercised the day they re-took the test.
- BAD: Frequent eating: A study published in a recent issue of Neurology warned that people over 50 who are obese are more likely to lose memory and cognitive skills during the next decade than their fitter counterparts.
- GOOD: Piano tuning: A team of British scientists discovered highly specific changes in the hippocampus–which affects memory– within the brains of professional piano tuners. They suggested that the act of playing and listening closely to two notes played simultaneously as they tuned pianos helped make their brains more adaptive.
- BAD: Working near MRI scanners: Research by Dutch scientists suggests that people with frequent exposure to the magnetic fields used to create MRI images may be at greater risk of diminished working memory.
Video bonus: See what researchers learned about memory from the brains of London taxi drivers.
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I’ve found that I have a poor memory when it comes to remembering what 5 things I was supposed to buy at the market, but when it comes to a remembering a trail i walked or museum I’ve been to I am able to recall a lot of the details. I wish my memory was better however some people who are unable to forget anything are unable to move forward with their lives either.
Why would someone with perfect memory need to make elaborate
catalogs of their collections?
I smell a rat.
Hi Susan…No, these people do not have perfect memories. They have exceptional memories in a very specific area–the personal details of their daily lives. In fact, as mentioned in the post, they do no better than the rest of us in standard memory tests.
If you keep a written diary, and use standard tricks to easily memorize pages and numbers (see Francis Yeats “The Art
of Memory” or the books of Harry Loraine and Bruno Furst) , it is easy to have “Perfect Autobiographical Memory.
You need to care, and that is where the OCD comes in.
Fifty years ago, I tested the method by memorizing “The Lord of the Rings”, by using ten key images per page and linking them to the page number. It took one evening. I also spent the next evening memorizing a table of five place logarithms, which made me an amazing “human calculator”.
Such things are trivial, with the right tools.
There was a time, when it commonplace, as Yeats explains.
You, of course, can skip the written diary, but it helps others to check your memory.
In line with that discovery, the researchers determined that the study’s subjects were more likely then usual to have OCD tendencies.
^Wrong kind of “then”…
I’ve always been fascinated with these studies. I am the kind of person who can remember direct quotes for a year or so after… I retain information fairly easily, such as phone numbers, addresses, and subjects learned in school, but I won’t remember what I was wearing or eating a week before. The human mind is full of intrigue.
I immediately thought of Thomas Jefferson and the possibility of him having hyperthymesia, as he also kept very detailed records…no? Iwonder if there’s been any hint of this in his writings.
Frequent eating is different than obesity and almost always helps to decrease weight, rather than increase it. Having 5 or 6 smaller meals is better than having 2 or 3 huge meals.
Susan: can you recall what was on page 152 of “Lord of the Rings” today, 50 years later? if not, can you estimate how long you did recall most of it?
You remember what you had for Breakfast 14 years ago…Are you sure? Did the PAID researchers have a way to verify this? Did their subjects keep receipts?(I suppose that would undermine the study, however.)
Also,how about your frame of mind when the event happened? Would a memory you recorded at 12 years of age be comparable to that same event if you saw it at age 30? At 60?
All too often,these studies are little more than the sound and the fury, signifying nothing.
I believe I have an exceptional biographical memory for some thing. I am ale to reconstruct my Kindergarden classroom, and I remember things Isaid and that things that were said to me. I do not remember everything though, I remember things I do not want to remember. I have had several people through out my life tell me that not many people are able to tell a story about a true event from beginning to end with such details. I am horrible at math. I wonder if certain types of memory ability are formed very early in the developmental years. However, I am aware of other family members having exceptional memory abilities. My daughter is able to recite the entire script from the Lion King Movie from memory and she had not even tried to memorize this.
My father was 100% Clairvoyant he could see the past, future and spirits of the dead that hadn’t crossed over. He helped many to cross over. He also had a photographic memory, A mechanical brain and a mathamatical brain,he could attain super human strength in a emergeancy,he could not get drunk.In a experment at Syracuse University he stared at a goat for eight hours and killed it. He could also talk to the dead if they hadn’t crossed over. He could also find things that people had been looking for for years.
Memories are linked very closely with emotions. Try remembering your first day at school, your first kiss, first breakup.
Try recollecting anything which lead to a lot of emotions and odds are high you remember it vividly.
Dr. Don,
This is a short article on people with super autobiographical memories. On the 60 Minutes program mentioned, some of the people were asked questions about details that could be verified by photos, newspapers, sports statistics, etc.
What is key, is that these people do not have photographic memories.
Not mentioned is if this might be epigenetic.
greg,
Until, I saw the movies, which had interfering visual
images.
Yati,
Your observation is the basis of one of the major methods of memory technique used in the middle ages—see Yeats’ book.
One associates what is to be recalled by linking images with a well recalled journey.
Interesting!
I have an uncanny ability to recognize almost any piece of classical music that I know–instant and anywhere in the piece. My recognition occurs before I think about it. I once named a piece (variations on Mozart’s A-major Sonata) of a piece I had never heard before by a composer I had never listened to before (though had read about him). I named Beethoven’s 2nd String Quartet, Opus 18, that I had never before heard but had heard the other fifteen. Our library had lost the 2nd in its Concert Hall collection. I named Schumann’s 3rd Symphony, having heard the other third. I cannot read music but know where notes go on the score and was, therefore, able to pass to music theory courses at IU because testers used lesser known pieces of music that I did not have to follow but could simply recall the piece until I got the notes right. I have this remarkable, but useless, ability because I hear music in my ears continually, day and night. Thus, I continually review the melodies, harmonies, etc. I can improvise a three-part fugue in any key but am musically illiterate. I almost always remember where I first heard a piece of music and have a magical recognition of Mozart, seldom confusing him with early Beethoven, middle and late Haydn, Hummel, or early Schubert. My ears tell me that the violin concertos #6 and #7 are not his while the celebrated, recently discovered, A-minor Symphony, though a wonderful piece, is also not by him.
I am musically illiterate but hear great music in my head continually. My mother played piano continually when I was in her belly. Maybe, that has something to do with it. I have often wondered.
Sorry; edit. the other “three” (and) able to pass “two” music theory courses with “B’s” in both