Every now and then we hear stories of amazing memory skills like those who can remember so many digits of pi or miraculous people capable of recalling what they were doing at an exact time many years ago. If you’ve read my previous blog on sleep and memory, you’d know this is a skill I am far from having, so there is a lot of envy here. However, in Andrew’s (2013) recent article, “People with Superhuman Memory Are as Fallible as the Rest of Us”, it is discussed that this rare human power could be somewhat of a fraud. People with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, or HSAM, are said to be a very small fraction of our population and possess crazy memory skills (Andrew, 2013).
In Cleary’s (2013) article, research has been done on those with HSAM and how their ability to recall such fine details of every day came to be. She said it’s easy enough to assume those with HSAM were lucky enough to be born with differently put together brains than the norm, but could it be something else? The strange thing was that it was found that these special brains were only enhanced in autobiographical memory but nowhere else. Though a lot more research on this subject is still needed, it was believed that they found an improved connection, or transferring of information, in the neural pathways, leading to a stronger hold of information. The idea that maybe these HSAM persons could have actually developed this change in neural activity came about, though. Looking at those who are musical protégés, we usually see they started out young, and their brains’ activities work differently than the average person. Using this idea of training from a young age, an actress with HSAM was asked about what she did during her childhood, and she said she’d play a memory game with herself, trying to remember events of every day, every week, and so on. Training the brain from a young age could be playing a role in setting us up for a stronger, more efficient memory (Cleary, 2013).
Here is Part 1 of a 60-Minute video on HSAM (This part is under 14 minutes long.): http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/endless-memory-part-1/
If people having extraordinary memory are supported, then why did I mention these they could be faulty? In the past, there have been false memories that led to injustice. There are situations where detailed information is needed, such as recalling important events from a murder case; these can depend on witnesses. Can we trust others’ memories? Granted, while numerous peoples’ recollections are taken into account and compared, and we often have no other option than to question witnesses and check for DNA, but sometimes we strongly rely on those eyes and ears when DNA testing fails to produce helpful results.
Patihis et al. (2013) pointed out that in the past, those with HSAM were rumored to not be as inclined to false memories like the rest of us normies. In other words, normal people can forget what happened three Tuesdays ago, but if asked, we may make something up, believing it to be true. Suggestions can make us forget the exact event. So if I told you to remember what happened at that party three weeks ago (assuming you weren’t drunk), and you took a minute to think as I snuck in something about a fire starting, you, out of lack of memory, might agree there was a fire and add to this hot story. I might know there was never a fire at that party, though. So if someone with the incredible memory power such as those with HSAM can recall events so well, can they be just as influenced by suggestion? How do they pull information out so easily? Patihis et al. (2013) took a group of HSAM participants and a control group without this memory skill and put them through three tests: a false-memory associative word list task, a misinformation task, and a nonexistent news-footage task. In the false-memory associative word list task, they were given 20 lists, each 15 long and relating to a main word or event they never physically saw. As it turned out, both the control and the HSAM groups were equally likely to be distracted by unrelated words, though the HSAM group was a slightly more likely to get more hits on recognizing the correct words. In the misinformation task, in two slide shows of two events, there were 50 images each. Later, participants saw two narratives, each with 50 sentences – six sentences being misinformation and unrelated to the true events. Those with HSAM had a similar result of false memory to the control, perhaps even a tad bit higher but not significantly. In the nonexistent news-footage task, the crash of United 93 in Pennsylvania was the event used. Participants were told that there was footage of the event out there, and a detailed interview was given to see if they could recall seeing the footage that doesn’t really exist. Of the HSAM participants on the computer questionnaire, 20% said they saw this footage, and 29% from the control group said they saw it. In the actually interview, only 10% of HSAM participants said they saw it, and 18% from the control said they saw it. There was not a significant difference between the HSAM and control group’s false memories, showing that HSAM is just as susceptible to false memory as anyone else. Patihis et al. (2013) did also state that the word-list task demonstrated an associative grouping HSAM individuals use to reconstruct their memories, and they add information that happened after the event in the process as well. They are still just as vulnerable to memory distortion during this reconstructive process as we are (Patihis et al., 2013).
These reconstructive processes, which involve numerous actions of perception and processing, such as experience, emotion, semantic memory, etc., are important for those with HSAM. These sorts of information are important for all of us, really, as far as memory goes. I’ve learned in my Introduction to Biological Psychology course that the Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex are very active during the making of a memory, there are different types of memory, REM sleep is important for filtering out unimportant information to aid in learning a.k.a. important memories, memories are stored across the brain and really have no specific area that holds all of them, and there is a lot of reactivation of neurons involved to create long-term memories. Honestly, though, we are not so different, rather I believe we take in information differently in the sense that some people choose to focus on creating memories. Basically, I’m agreeing with the hypothesis that we change how our brain works from events in our youth. What do you guys think? Do you agree with that idea? We already know our brains can change; I mean, how do you think we learn? But can we train our brain to change its design to help us gain superhuman memory? If they are just as susceptible to false memory as us, should we focus on their recollection of events? I mean, they do still have a greater memory, but is it always accurate?
References
Andrews, B. (November 19, 2013). People with superhuman memory are as fallible as the rest of us. Discover. Retrieved from http://discovermagazine.com/
Cleary, A.M. (January 9, 2013). People with extraordinary autobiographical memory. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/
Patihis, L., Frenda, S.J., LePort, A.K.R., Petersen, N., Nicholas, R.M., Stark, C.E.L., . . . Loftus, E.F. (2013). False memories in highly superior autobiographical memory individuals. PNAS. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1314373110
Kate 