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List of people claimed to possess an eidetic memory

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A number of people claim to have eidetic memory, but science has never found a single verifiable case of photographic memory.[1][2] Eidetic imagery is virtually nonexistent in adults.[3] Most people showing amazing memory abilities use mnemonic strategies, mostly the method of loci. This includes all winners of the annual World Memory Championships and most of the known scientific cases of excellent memories, like Solomon Shereshevsky. Regardless, the following list contains people who have claimed photographic memory.[4]

People claimed to possess an eidetic memory

[edit]
  • Hu Jintao, former President of the People's Republic of China, is said to have a photographic memory that was evident in his high school days.[6][7]
  • Jimmy Rollins of the Philadelphia Phillies has been described as having a photographic memory of games, at-bats and pitch sequences.[8]
  • Charles Nalder Baeyertz, a publisher and music critic in New Zealand. His capacity to memorize a page at a glance enabled him to display an apparently inexhaustible supply of knowledge and to acquire several languages. He claimed to have learnt Maori by memorizing a dictionary. His favourite party trick was to read a newspaper column then recite it backward.[9]
  • Winnie Bamara, Australian indigenous woman whose ability to paint scenes accurately and solely from memory attracted wide attention in the 1950s.[10]
  • David Boies, an American litigator, is frequently described as having a photographic memory that enables him to recite exact text, page numbers, and legal exhibits. Colleagues attribute his courtroom success in part to this ability.[11][12]
  • The Darawiish reciter Huseen Dhiqle could memorize upwards of a hundred poems of the Sayid's, each of them hundreds of lines long, after hearing them once.[13]
  • The mathematician Leonhard Euler has been characterized as having an eidetic memory.[14] He was able to, for example, repeat the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning to end without hesitation, and for every page in the edition he could indicate which line was the first and which was the last even decades after having read it.[14]
  • Robert Evans could identify new objects that appear in starfields of 1,500 galaxies.[15]
  • Akira Haraguchi holds the unofficial world record for the most decimal places of pi recited by memory. His ability is self-attributed to a strong eidetic memory, though he uses a mnemonic device.[16][17]
  • Sean McVay, an American NFL head coach for the Los Angeles Rams, can recall all plays from any game he has coached or participated in his career.[18]
  • LeBron James, an American basketball player, can recall where every player is during any point of a full 48 minute game.[19][20]
  • Klaus Kinski, a German actor, was described by Will Tremper as having a photographic memory, which allowed him to memorize a book page within minutes.[21]
  • Beth Levine, a cellular biologist, said to have had "an eidetic memory, drawing connections that others did not see..."[22]
  • C. S. Lewis, a literary scholar, novelist and religious writer, was described as "the best read man of his generation, one who read and remembers everything he read." His student Derek Brewer said that one could quote any line from Milton's epic Paradise Lost, and Lewis would continue reciting the poem from that point from memory. Other students of Lewis told of two separate occasions when Lewis invited them to select any book from Lewis' shelf, begin to read from a page at random, and Lewis would continue.[23]
  • Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, an Indian saint, is described in his biography as a "shruti-dhara", or "someone who could memorize anything immediately".[24]
  • Dimitri Mitropoulos, a Greek conductor, was noted for having an eidetic memory which enabled him to conduct without a score, even during rehearsals [25]
  • Said Nursî, an Ottoman Islamic scholar who was able to recite many books from memory. For instance "... So then he [Molla Fethullah] decided to test his memory and handed him a copy of the work by Al-Hariri of Basra (1054–1122) — also famous for his intelligence and power of memory — called Maqamat al-Hariri. Said read one page once, memorized it, then repeated it by heart. Molla Fethullah expressed his amazement."[26]
  • "Shas Pollak" (Yiddish: Talmud-Pole), Jewish term for any mnemonist who memorized the exact layout of words in more than 5,422 pages of the 12 books of the standard edition of the Babylonian Talmud. However, the claim to eidetic memory was later disputed.[27]
  • Nigel Richards, New Zealand scrabble player who, despite not speaking French, won the French World Scrabble Championships twice by studying the French dictionary for nine weeks, is said to possess an eidetic memory.[28]
  • Joseph Rosen, a world famous Rabbi and talmudic scholar. He claimed to remember every day of his life from the age of three, and would frequently remind his guests how many times they had conversed and regarding which topics. His books on Talmud are renowned for his ability to find novel solutions based on obscure and seemingly unrelated sources.[citation needed]
  • Lucy Shapiro, professor of Developmental Biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, in interview claims she has "an eidetic memory, so if I see a page or write something down, it’s like taking a photograph. I can also move molecules around in three-dimensional space easily and see them"[29]
  • Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram, has been described as possessing a photographic memory.[30]
  • Sukarno, the father of Indonesian independence and the first president of the Republic of Indonesia, is said to have had a photographic memory, which helped him in his language learning.[31]
  • Nikola Tesla also is claimed to have possessed photographic memory.[32]
  • Arturo Toscanini, an Italian conductor. It was estimated that by the end of his career he had memorized over 200 symphonies and up to 100 operas.[33] "One of his second grade school teachers, Signora Vernoni, noticed that Toscanini could memorize poems after a single reading and could pick out on the piano the songs and arias he had heard people singing."[34]
  • Leonardo da Vinci is said to have possessed photographic memory.[35]
  • Swami Vivekananda is believed to have eidetic memory as he could memorize a book just by going through it once.[36]
  • The mathematician John von Neumann was able to memorize a column of the phone book at a single glance.[37] Herman Goldstine wrote about him: "One of his remarkable abilities was his power of absolute recall. As far as I could tell, von Neumann was able on once reading a book or article to quote it back verbatim; moreover, he could do it years later without hesitation."[38]
  • Stephen Wiltshire is a prodigious savant,[39] capable of drawing the entire skyline of a city after a helicopter ride.[40]
  • Koorathalvar, born in 1050 CE, was the chief disciple of the prominent Vaishnavite saint Ramanuja and was said to have memorized the Brahma Sutras word for word after being given only a short time to study it.[41]
  • Tim Rogers, an American video game developer and journalist, claims to suffer from hyperthymesia in several of his published works.[42]

See also

[edit]
  • Exceptional memory – about the scientific background of research on exceptional memory
  • Hyperthymesia, ability to remember specific details of virtually every day of one's life since childhood

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Does Photographic Memory Exist?". Scientific American. January 2013. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
  2. ^ Foer, Joshua (2006-04-27). "No one has a photographic memory". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
  3. ^ "eidetic imagery | Definition & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
  4. ^ Wilding, J.M., & Valentine, E.R.: Superior Memory. Hove, England: Psychology Press (1997).
  5. ^ "Washingtonpost.com: Politics News". www.washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2024-04-24.
  6. ^ "Profile: Hu Jintao". 16 September 2004. Retrieved 4 December 2009.
  7. ^ "Hu Jintao: Enigmatic politician who revealed a ruthless streak - Profiles, People - The Independent". Independent.co.uk. 2009-12-20. Archived from the original on 2009-12-20. Retrieved 2024-03-31.
  8. ^ "Jimmy Rollins is ready to pick right back up where he left off: with hits". ESPN.com. 2006-02-27. Archived from the original on 2017-12-01. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  9. ^ Woods, Joanna (2008). Facing The Music Charles Baeyertz and The Triad. Otago University Press. ISBN 978-1-877372-55-1., pp. 22–23
  10. ^ K. V. Parish, 'The remarkable art of Winnie Bamara', The Sunday Mail, February 14, 1959, p.7
  11. ^ "The Information Age". The Nineties. 2017. CNN.
  12. ^ Donovan, Karen (2007). V. Goliath: The Trials of David Boies. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-375-72655-2. Retrieved 3 September 2017.
  13. ^ Abokor, Axmed (1993). Somali Pastoral Work Songs. p. 23. Huseen - Dhiqle, who had the reputation of memorizing many poems hundreds of lines long after hearing them
  14. ^ a b Calinger, Ronald S. (2015). Leonhard Euler: Mathematical Genius in the Enlightenment. Princeton University Press. p. 22. ISBN 9780691119274.
  15. ^ Sacks, Oliver (1995). An anthropologist on Mars : seven paradoxical tales (1st ed.). New York: Vintage/Picador. p. 198. ISBN 0-679-43785-1.
  16. ^ Adams, Lee (1 March 2006). "The Truth About Photographic Memory". psychologytoday.com. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  17. ^ Bellos, Alex (2015-03-13). "He ate all the pi : Japanese man memorises π to 111,700 digits". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
  18. ^ Caron, Emily (12 September 2018). "Rams Coach Sean McVay can recall every play he's ever coached". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
  19. ^ Lebron
  20. ^ lebron2
  21. ^ Tremper, Will (1 January 1993). Meine wilden Jahre. Ullstein. p. 234. ISBN 978-3-550-06046-5. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
  22. ^ Xavier, Ramnik J.; Virgin, Herbert W. (6 August 2020). "Beth Levine (1960–2020)" (PDF). Cell. 182 (3): 533–536. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.07.002.
  23. ^ Paul Tankard, “William Empson on C.S. Lewis’s Memory and Reading,” Notes and Queries, vol. 259, no. 4; N.S. 61:4 (Dec., 2014), 614-16.  doi: 10.1093/notesj/gju181
  24. ^ pnd (2011-07-15). Ādi 16: The Pastimes of the Lord in His Childhood and Youth.
  25. ^ Trotter, William R. Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1995. ISBN 0-931340-81-0.
  26. ^ Şükran Vahide. (2005). Islam in Modern Turkey. State University of New York Press, ISBN 0-7914-6515-2
  27. ^ Joshua Foer (27 April 2006). "Kaavya Syndrome: No one has a photographic memory". slate.com.
  28. ^ "A way with words". Stuff. 2010-06-05. Retrieved 2022-01-27.
  29. ^ Neill, Ushma S. (2019-08-01). "A conversation with Lucy Shapiro". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 129 (8): 2981–2982. doi:10.1172/JCI131492. ISSN 0021-9738. PMC 6668687. PMID 31368904.
  30. ^ "Nigeria's Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in profile". BBC News. 9 May 2014. Archived from the original on 2015-06-05. Retrieved 2024-04-06.
  31. ^ Ludwig M., Arnold (2004). King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership. University Press of Kentucky. p. 150.
  32. ^ Borowski, Susan (29 May 2012). "The brilliant and tortured world of Nikola Tesla". American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) MemberCentral. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  33. ^ "Arturo Tosanini". bpbclassics.demon.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-02-06.
  34. ^ "Toscanini: A Brief Biography" Archived 2017-07-28 at the Wayback Machine. arturotoscanini.org. Retrieved 2017-02-06.
  35. ^ M. Rajamanickam (1 January 2007). Modern General Psychology, Second Edition (revised And Expanded) (in 2 Vols.). Concept Publishing Company. p. 434. ISBN 978-81-8069-421-9.
  36. ^ Rangachari, Devika (1 January 2011). Swami Vivekananda: A Man with a Vision. Penguin Books Limited. p. 21. ISBN 978-81-8475-563-3. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
  37. ^ Halmos, Paul (April 1973). "The Legend of von Neumann". American Mathematical Monthly. 80 (4): 382–394. doi:10.2307/2319080. JSTOR 2319080.
  38. ^ The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann, by Herman Goldstine, 1972, Princeton Univ. Press, ISBN 0-691-08104-2, p. 167
  39. ^ Treffert, Darold (1989). Extraordinary People: understanding "idiot savants". New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-015945-6.
  40. ^ David Martin. Savants: Charting "islands of genius", CNN broadcast September 14, 2006
  41. ^ Rajalakshm, T.S. (Jan 2019). "King of Kooram - Koorathalwar". Saptagiri. 49: 43–44.
  42. ^ Rogers, Tim (June 6, 2016). ""What We Might Mean When We Say a Clock is Wrong"". Medium.
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