Photographic Memory Exposed: Debunking Myths To Empower You

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In the world of memory improvement, the mere mention of photographic memory is usually connected with some kind of scam.

But the problems begin with how so many people confuse the term “photographic memory” with a completely different concept called eidetic memory.

Another problem is the validity of the available research.

Frankly, most scientific material about people being able to look at information, take a mental snapshot and recall something perfectly has not been well evidenced.

Not only that, but if you think about it, no sane person would even want to be able to recall everything in such perfect detail.

I’ll explain why with a notorious case study of a woman who wishes she could forget information.

And by the end of this article, I hope to convince you of one simple fact:

Photographic Memory Does Not Exist
(And I Can Prove It)

Unless you’re a painter who would benefit from memorizing every single detail of a room or landscape, there are very few benefits to the idea of photographic memory.

Serious artists make study sketches even from photographs because it’s not just about what they see. Artistic representation is what they can reproduce using their mind’s eye and their muscles.

But let’s say you did want to memorize an entire book. Who would listen to you recite each and every word?

Where and when would you perform the recitation?

The answer is that you almost certainly would never use such a skill. And these days we have professional audiobook narrators, and even AI voices to handle such long-form content tasks.

You can watch me question the limited value of memorizing entire books in greater detail in this video:

In reality, you need only memorize the most critical pieces of information in any given book.

That’s why I wrote and recorded an entire podcast episode about how to memorize a textbook the right way. In brief, the method involves identifying the main points of a book and memorizing only the important information.

Doing that releases you from not only memorizing thousands of words like “and, “if,” but, etc. You don’t need to bother reciting or recalling them either.

The question is:

Why do people want to possess so-called “photographic memory” when it won’t actually do anything for them?

I believe the answer boils down to just one word: Fear.

People Seek Fantasy Memory Tricks Because They Want Something Unrealistic…

They want certainty in life.

Since none of us knows what’s going to happen next, the idea of photographic memory is attractive because it creates a sense that some level of security is possible.

They believe that if you can remember “everything,” you’ll be able to pass exams, never look foolish and always be prepared for debates.

Maybe, but as you’ll see soon, you might just be looking for trouble.

You actually can study successfully without photographic memory. You can make mistakes and still avoid embarrassing situations and easily succeed in many areas of life. You can even stop forgetting important things once and for all.

I know because I’ve been researching, practicing and teaching legitimate memory techniques that are proven to help. They are all well-evidenced by memory science and the incredible records produced by memory champions.

But photographic memory is not how any successful learning or memory competitor achieves their results. Let me explain why.

The Strange Research Behind Photographic Memory

The idea of photographic memory may have first appeared in a 1970 Psychology Today article by Charles F. Stromeyer.

Discussing a supposed Harvard student named “Elizabeth,” Stromeyer claimed she could remember detailed images with great clarity. He even claimed she could reproduce a stereogram, and some of his reports even wound up in Nature.

Why is this research questionable?

Two reasons. First, Stromeyer proceeded to marry Elizabeth. Second, he never studied her memory again.

Wouldn’t you think that someone with such extraordinary memory would be the subject of continual analysis for the rest of her life?

Why would such an incredible example disappear from view?

The mega-savant Kim Peek remained public throughout his life, after all. Akira Haraguchi gives interviews about how he has memorized so many digits of pi.

In reality, the answer is simple. There’s no such thing as photographic memory.

The closest thing to it that exists is sometimes called highly superior autobiographical (HSAM) or hyperthymesia. But this condition has little to do with visual memory or even iconic memory.

Her story and how she uses her memory in mostly verbal ways is quite unusual given what science has shown us about our massive storage capacity for images.

As you’ll see, many people displaying superior autobiographical memory recite not images, but historical dates, names and numbers. These facts draw much more on semantic memory than anything visual or even remotely “photographic.”

Far From Photographic Memory

Take the case of Jill Price. She’s the author of The Woman Who Can’t Forget. If you’ve ever had the fantasy that you wanted to remember everything, after hearing her story, you’ll probably think again.

As Price discusses in the book, her inability to forget information about the world and her personal life creates ongoing anguish.

So much so that doctors she worked with invented an entirely new term to describe her condition: “hyperthymestic syndrome.”

What exactly can she remember?

One example is her ability to recite the news of every April the 18th for ten years in a row with reasonable accuracy. Certainly, this is an interesting and even amazing feat. But is it useful?

Not really.

Although Price has claimed she would never trade this ability for the world, it’s clear that her ability to recall aspects of her life and historical dates hasn’t made her life easy.

She doesn’t even use the term “photographic memory” herself, except in an excerpted passage from the chatroom where she met her husband.

She also didn’t include the term in the glossary at the end of her book.

Instead, Price uses the term “flashbulb memory.”

This term also doesn’t fit the bill, showing that people who use her as an example of photographic memory are learning from someone who doesn’t have it, nor uses terms from memory science accurately.

Flashbulb memory refers to when we sharply recall dramatic or tragic moments.

For example, remembering where you were on the morning of 9/11 can seem vivid in your mind.

But that doesn’t make it photographic in the sense that you could draw any of the scenes you saw on the news the way Stromeyer’s research suggests Elizabeth might have done.

Price Still Forgets

The news stories like to play up cases of highly superior autobiographical memory. But they hide key facts too.

Although this ability astonished scientists – and it truly is astonishing – Price has shared how she struggles to learn and memorize simple things.

Worse, her constant recall of emotional traumas from the past interfered with her scholastic performance.

No doubt. Anxiety-induced memory loss is a real and serious issue.

Even if you’re interested in techniques to develop photographic memory and still believe that it’s possible and desirable to develop this skill, I recommend that you read The Woman Who Can’t Forget.

But if there’s one plus, it’s that Jill Price doesn’t have aphantasia.

Are There Any Jobs That Require Photographic Memory?

As I mentioned before, people often hear about photographic memory training programs because they want to remove uncertainty while studying or competing in the job market.

In this sense, there are some interesting angles related to photographic memory techniques that we can talk about.

For example, when I was younger and needed a job to get through my B.A., I applied to work for Customs Canada. Had I been successful, I would have worked at an airport inspecting bags and scanning people for signs of suspicious behaviour.

One of the exams I took involved looking at faces in disguise and then some moments later, without their disguises. In many cases, it proved very difficult to make a match.

Would having something even remotely like a photographic memory have helped?

Of course.

But the reality is that I did well on this part of the test despite not having trained my memory to be photographic.

The reason is that I paid special attention to easily recognizable parts of the faces, rather than trying to photograph them as a whole.

It’s a trick I picked up in psychology class and later prepared for the how to remember names and faces portion of the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass.

How To Memorize Faces

In brief, I once learned that the brain tends to recognize the shape of the nose and some of the circularity around the eyes.

Everything else either fills in or it doesn’t, but you increase your chance that these details will fill in by deliberately paying attention to the upside-down seven of the nose and the eight-shaped infinity symbol of the eyes.

It was cool to have this knowledge for the test because, had I focused on the chin of people wearing sunglasses and on the foreheads of people with faked noses, I would have failed.

I wouldn’t call focusing on the nose and eyes foolproof, but if you complete some of the Masterclass exercises and concentrate on these areas the next time you meet a new face, I’m confident that you’ll find it much easier to recall these faces. Memorizing the name of the face is easy using mnemonics and in many cases a Memory Palace.

More Alternatives to Photographic Memory

Now that you know that there is a lack of scientific evidence for photographic memory, let me point out that memory is actually reconstructive in nature.

How memory works involves your brain literally piecing together all kinds of information that has been distributed throughout your brain.

Dr. Gary Small describes the process like an entire family needing to get together for Thanksgiving Dinner. A single memory involves many different parts traveling along the “streets” and “highways” of the brain to gather at one home.

There’s no perfect metaphor for what’s going on, but that one makes what’s going on relatively easy to picture.

The question is, what will give you better memory so you can recall dates and facts as easily as someone with highly superior autobiographical memory?

Here are some suggestions:

One: Learn the Method of Loci

I mentioned the term “Memory Palace” above. This memory technique is based on the ancient method of loci.

To use it, you associate information with specific locations in a familiar place. When you want to recall information, you revisit these memory spaces and this process allows for easier recall.

A reflection process is involved, and some researchers believe that people with highly superior autobiographical memory tend to reflect more than others.

But there’s reason to believe that people like Jill Price also use locations in a way. She talks in her book about having written done more than 50,000 pages of notes.

All of those notes are locations, not unlike how some mnemonists use Zettlekasten and the Leitner System.

Likewise, the so-called “Boy who can’t forget” uses photographs and thinks back to where they are located on his bedroom wall frequently. You can see how this happens clearly in this documentary about him:

Although this is not the Memory Palace method as such, it strongly relates, combined with journaling and reflective thinking.

In other words, there’s likely nothing particularly genetic about what these people are doing to remember more. It’s behavioral, a kind of unconscious optimization of the ancient memory tradition.

Two: Spaced Repetition

People with unusual recall abilities repeat information almost obsessively.

In fact, I’ve often talked about how I trained myself to have “Recall OCD” in order to learn faster and remember more.

Specific techniques exist that can help refine the recall process. The most famous is spaced repetition and it is a fantastic alternative to rote learning.

It is a discipline, however. Make sure to use deliberate practice so it enters your procedural memory. That way, you’ll use this process more-or-less automatically as you study.

Three: Tell Stories

We tend to remember information much better when it is embedded in stories.

The good news is that you can use a mnemonic story method that brings the method of loci together with spaced repetition.

You can start practicing this method now by taking the story of Jill Price and placing it in a Memory Palace.

Watch one of the videos about her or read her book. Then add a few of the details to a familiar location.

Or tell a story about Jack and Jill paying high prices at the store. This simple approach can help you remember the last name “Price.”

Beyond Photographic Memory

Although the scientific community largely agrees that there are people with extraordinary memory abilities, the idea of recalling visual information with perfect accuracy after one glance is not supported by empirical research.

But although the myth has harmed many people who have fallen for memory courses promising this kind of skill, you now know how to avoid them.

You also have proper mnemonic tools to pursue that will help you remember, not every word in a book, but only those that matter.

And if you need more help, grab my free memory improvement course:

It gives you video tutorials and worksheets that help you develop the skills we discussed today.

That way, you’ll be able to rely on your memory and accomplish your goals.

How do you like that picture?