Photographic memory: what it is, and how to train it

• Eidetic memory is an image that lingers in front of your eyes for a short time after you look away. Research has found it in a small share of children and almost never in adults (Haber, 1979).
• Photographic memory, as the Upgrade Your Memory books use the term, is the ability to recall people, places and things in detail, from long-term memory. That one can be trained.

The popular idea of photographic memory is a camera in the head: look at a page once, read it back later. There is no reliable evidence of it in adults. The most famous case, a woman called Elizabeth tested in 1970, was never confirmed: she was not tested again, and no one like her has been found since. The journalist Joshua Foer, who became US memory champion, summed it up in 2006: no one has a photographic memory.

They use techniques. When researchers scanned ten top memory competitors, their brains were not built differently from anyone else’s; nine of the ten used the memory palace (Maguire and colleagues, 2003). As Photographic Memory puts it:

“While some individuals have stronger photographic memories than others, it isn’t because they were born with a special gift. The more realistic reason is that they use different techniques to strengthen their ability to remember things.”

• Observe, then recall. Look at an object for a minute, look away, describe or draw it, then compare.
• Use the memory palace for anything you need in order.
• Make images vivid: big, moving, unusual.
• Test yourself later, not just right away.

Palace Builder · Memory Test · The memory palace