The Pros And Cons Of Eidetic Imagery

“Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don’t have the film.” In this quote by Stephen Wright, he mentions the rare phenomenon regarding photographic memory. The technical term, eidetic imagery, is so much more than having a really good memory. Eidetic imagery is defined as the ability to retain images in memory that are almost perfect photographic quality. A person who has eidetic imagery can simply look at any image including a map, drawing, or essay, and mentally recall it later. The rarity of a photographic memory can be seen within studies and cases. The concerning question follows whether or not eidetic imagery exists.
According to the journal article Evidence for the Uniqueness of Eidetic Imagery, Haber and Haber (1964) introduced a standard system for the classification of eidetic imagery. In order to test a participant “the subject views a picture placed on a black easel and reports anything that can be seen on the surface of …show more content…
Eidetic imagery is not a well understood phenomenon in the world of neuroscience. Much evidence points towards the concept being entirely fictional because research has not been able to consistently verify the presence of such memory. Because so few eidetikers have been found, it still remains a mystery as to how the phenomenon works neurologically. Such a perspective on the neurological basis for eidetic memory would explain many of the unanswered questions on the topic. In the future, neurological testing may lead to a greater understanding of the location of memory in the brain and what causes such extraordinarily clear and detailed memories to form. The combination of using sophisticated technology and having more people with superior memories come forward, it is possible that many unanswered questions about photographic memory will someday be