Have you ever met someone with a photographic memory? Or even heard of someone with a photographic memory? If your answer is no, it seems that that’s the only conceivable response despite our global population exceeding 8 billion.
The first and only time I heard of someone having a photographic memory was when I read the children’s fiction series “Cam Jansen” in elementary school. The book series follows a girl who solves crimes and mysteries with her photographic memory and observational skills. For third grade me, reading a book where the main character could remember so many things by simply closing her eyes and saying the word “click” made me immediately entranced by the whole idea. Faced with so many unknowns, there was just one question stuck in my mind (pun intended): What is it like to actually have a photographic memory?
My search for the answer to this question was disappointingly short and took the span of one quick Google search. It appears that the reason why I had only heard of someone having a photographic memory in a fictional book series is because it is fictional.
Nobody has a photographic memory, and there’s never been evidence of any human ever having one. Even John Hopkins Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Science Barry Gordon, with the sentiment of millions of other professionals and scientists, stated, “A true photographic memory in this sense has never been proved to exist.”
The closest one has gotten to proving the existence of such, according to Yale Scientific, was in a 1970 Harvard paper written by Charles Stromeyer III. In this, Stromeyer had shown Harvard student Elizabeth 10,000 random dots to her right eye on one day, and then another 10,000 random dots to her left eye on the next. She had then mentally fused the two dotted images together to form a three-dimensional image floating on the surface. However, Elizabeth later got married to Stromeyer and refused to get re-tested by another scientist. So…it might not have been true.
Many researchers have tried to replicate the same test by Stromeyer or create tests themselves, but the results have always been the same — no one has a photographic memory. However, there is something similar called eidetic memory. According to Psychology Today, a clear difference between photographic and eidetic memory is that eidetic memory isn’t when an image is stored like a photo. Instead, people with an eidetic memory can vividly and precisely remember an image, but only for 30 seconds to a few minutes. Therefore this only works if they don’t move their eyes or blink. Sometimes images aren’t accurately captured either, as eidetikers unintentionally invent details that were never there and remember things that aren’t true, as the human brain does. Sadly, eidetic memory isn’t a common or lasting trait, as this phenomenon occurs exclusively in two to 10 percent of children under 12, but not in adults.
That’s not to say that humans don’t have incredible memories or remember things extremely well. Yet, the evidence, or lack thereof, of photographic memory and its abilities lead us to the conclusion that the capability of humans to take a photo in our minds is simply impossible. Unfortunately, this means that I will never get an answer to my persistent question and that none of us will ever be able to live up to fifth grade Cam Jansen and her extraordinary superpower.
