• Question: what make someone have a photographic memory

    Asked by 652erbb43 to Tom, Jen, Imogen, Hephzi on 18 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Thomas Barrett

      Thomas Barrett answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      Whether people have a truly photographic memory is up for debate, some scientists think it might not be possible others disagree.

      It is easy to demonstrate this by asking people who think they have photographic memory to read two or three lines of text and then report the text in reverse order. If memory worked like a photograph, these people would be able to rapidly reproduce the text in reverse order by “reading” the photo. However, people cannot do this.

      People with a vastly improved memory however do exists and some of these people have enlarged areas of the brain associated with memory. The other potential cause is psychological whereby one memory triggers the next and so on and so on, so by remembering one thing you remember everything.

      Scientists are learning more about memory by studying people with very good memory, as well as people who have very poor memory as the result of neurological injury or disease.

    • Photo: Hephzi Tagoe

      Hephzi Tagoe answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      I think it’s all down to how our individual brains process information and perhaps an element of nature vs nurture so your genes combined with how you train the brain to work over time.
      Not an expert on the brain though so I don’t know for certain

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