Photographic memory facts for kids

A photographic memory, also called eidetic memory, is a special ability. It means someone can remember pictures or objects in amazing detail. They can do this even after seeing them for just a very short time. But here's the thing: many scientists aren't sure if this ability truly exists.

People who claim to have a photographic memory say they can recall visual things very well. This could be a page from a book, a picture from a magazine, or even a car's license plate number. Some also claim that people with this ability might have higher IQs. It's said that they don't need to use special tricks, called mnemonics, to help them remember.

This special memory is thought to happen in a small number of children, maybe 2 to 10 percent. It usually appears when they are very young. However, it's generally not found in adults.

Is Photographic Memory Real?

Some experts don't believe that photographic memory is a real skill. For example, Marvin Minsky, a smart scientist who studied how our minds work, wrote a book in 1988. In it, he said that stories about photographic memory were just "an unfounded myth." This means he thought they weren't true.

Chess Masters and Memory

A researcher named Adriaan de Groot studied how good chess grandmasters were at remembering where chess pieces were on a board. At first, people thought these grandmasters had photographic memory. This was because they could remember much more information than people who weren't chess experts.

However, de Groot found something interesting. When the chess pieces were arranged in ways that would never happen in a real game, the grandmasters weren't any better at remembering them than non-experts. This suggests that their amazing memory was only for specific types of information they knew well (like real chess positions). It didn't mean they had a general photographic memory for everything.

The Elizabeth Case

Around 1970, a scientist named Charles Stromeyer studied his future wife, Elizabeth. He claimed she could remember poems written in a language she didn't understand. She could even recall them years after first seeing them!

Elizabeth also seemed to be able to remember random dot patterns. She could combine two different patterns in her mind to create a 3D image. She is the only person known to have passed such a test.

However, there were problems with these studies. The exact ways the tests were done weren't very clear. Also, Elizabeth has always refused to repeat the tests. This made many people even more doubtful about whether photographic memories are real.

See also

In Spanish: Eidética para niños