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What´s Eidetic Memory?

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Eidetic Memory

Imagine having the ability to take a screenshot of what one sees. It sounds like photographic memory, that superhuman ability one often hears about on Dateline or movies and shows. As much as the idea of saving everything one has ever perceived, storing it away like a file in a cabinet, and recalling it at a moment’s notice sounds amazing, it just isn’t plausible. Despite the stories you may have heard from friends, photographic memory is not real. This misconception is often muddled with eidetic memory. Eidetic memory is the ability to recall certain images in great detail for a certain amount of time. The key detail about eidetic memory is that these “snapshots” are not stored forever. They eventually fade over time …show more content…

Adults learn to intertwine different senses, associate them together, and group information in chunks. However, children have not developed these skills and view information in separate fragments, increasing the potency of their visual perception. A study detailed in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that children under twelve years of age do not perceive visual information the same way adults do. While adults process different visual cues into one unified chunk of information, kids separate visual information. The childhood method of processing may allow kids to fine-tune their visual systems as they grow, the study authors say. Researchers have long known that youngsters don't fully integrate sensory information until after about age 8. Before then information received by touch, sight and hearing isn't as closely linked as the same information would be in the adult brain. In the study, scientists at the University of College London and Birkbeck, University of London asked children and adults to wear 3-D glasses and compare images of two slanted surfaces to judge which one was the flattest.These images gave the participants texture and binocular information either separately or all at once. The study found that adults were more accurate in identifying the correct images, whereas the children weren’t as accurate (Pappas, 2010). This study shows that

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