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Originally posted by whatthe222:

Shereshevsky didn't have a photographic memory per se. That term reffers to eidedic memory, or a perfect recall of the orriginal image - some some faint association.

You're right. I didn't really mean to suggest that Shereshevksy had a 'photographic memory'. He apparently used a form of synesthesia transforming sounds into visual imagery. I cited his example mainly because in the popular version of things, concepts like "great memory" and "photographic memory" and "good recall" are all sort of jumbled together. They're used synonymously, even though they technically aren't. I was considering a link between this (in some circles) widely known case and the idea some people have that a photographic memory would detrimental, in some way.


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I don't think the perception of such people comes from Luria's book, because it isn't read by the vast majority of the public. A more plausible explination would be from the movie Rain Man..

True. The book did, however, influenced a lot of people in psychology and cognitive science -- who, at least indirectly, must have helped shape public perception of what a person with a phenomenal memory is like. I'm guessing here, of course. Since this was the most well-known and widely referred to case study, I think much was read into that one example. Prior to the sixties, memory was not studied much and information about these kinds of people were in short supply.

I also agree the Rain Man example is the most well-known example, although I think the notion that "powerful recall equals serious deficiency in other area(s)" was around before this movie. He was an autistic man who happened to have amazing recall and there are many documented cases like him.

My main reason for my earlier post was that I didn't want people to get the idea that using Memory Supercharger might be detrimental if they use it often. Probably not a major concern with most, but I'd chime in about it. I believe someone who is consciously setting out to maximize their recall ability was this tape is likely to have only positive experiences with it.

I have -- and I love this tape!

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if we could find someway to access that information later, then maybe retroactively memorizing it, we could have both a perfect memory and devote more of our attention span to processing...

That's a great thought. I'm all for that.