• Question: Why do some people have photographic memories, or are autistic savants, etc?

    Asked by bridget to Amy, Drew, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Drew Rae

      Drew Rae answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Bridget,
      I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to this. Most cases of autism don’t result in savants, and we don’t know what causes autism.

      True photographic memories are much more common in children than in grown ups. They have a cool test for this. They cut a picture of a page of text into strips vertically. They show the person a picture with every second stripped blanked out, and then with every other strip blanked out. People with true photographic memories can line up the pictures in their head and read the words.

    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I honestly don’t know but I think its fascinating! 🙂 I associate colours with days of the week – which is a little odd I guess! 🙂

    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi bridget! Neat question! This is such a fascinating subject. I personally find savantism to be really really interesting. It is fascinating that people with such inhibiting disabilities can absolutely shine in some specialized area. I agree with the others, I don’t think we know what causes savantism or photo-graphic memories. Although in the case of autistic individuals I think it has something to do with extreme focus on details. Perhaps this becomes so focused in one area they sometimes become savants. The brain is mysterious so it is open to speculation at this point! Hopefully science will help us find an answer. Same goes for photographic memory. I think it is a process we don’t yet understand.

      Who’s your favorite savant? I think Kim Peek is just amazing – he memorized every zip code in the Unitied States!

    • Photo: Kimberley Bryon

      Kimberley Bryon answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      The honest answer is we don’t really know what causes this. It is pretty amazing though! Not everyone who is a savant is autistic although there does seem to be a high correlation. I imagine that photographic memories is probably to do with the strength of the connection between neurons in the brain as that is how long term memory works. Perhaps these people make super strong connections really quickly.

      Nice question 🙂

Comments

  • Photo: bridget

    bridget commented on :

    I don’t really know much about savants and things, but I can tell you that seeing colours as days of the week is called synesthesia, and it is where the senses connect to each other in diffrent ways than usual. In extreme cases this can be tasting colours or feeling sound, or something really strange like that, but in most cases it’s just associating colours with letters, numbers, words, etc

    • Photo: Sara

      Sara commented on :

      Bridget, that’s really cool. It is ringing a bell – I think I saw a show on discovery channel about synesthesia before. Thanks for sharing the cool factoid! Probably Amy will be interested for sure =)

      • Photo: Amy

        Amy commented on :

        Hey Bridget! One of my friends doing psychology at uni came back to the flat one day and started talking about synesthesia …when she explained what it was I had to say…hmmm…I think I’ve got a bit of that!! 🙂 Good knowledge!