Eidetic Memory

   Why Eidetic Memory May Not Be So Beneficial a Gift

   [A]lthough eidetic [("photographic")] memory is rare in adults, it seems to be much more frequent in young children. Think back to your own early memories, and it is probable that you will recollect them as a series of snapshots, fixed or frozen in time. . . . In a typical study, [Ralph] Haber would show children a coloured picture of Alice and the Cheshire cat from an illustrated Alice in Wonderland. In the drawing, the cat sat on a tree, striped tail curled behind it. Children having been briefly shown the picture could later answer questions in detail about it-for instance, when asked how many stripes were visible on the cat's tail, they would behave as if they were counting them off from some sort of mental image. Similarly, children shown a picture with writing on it in a foreign language could subsequently spell out the words as if reading them from an open book.

   Many, if not all young children apparently do normally see and remember eidetically, but this capacity is lost to most as they grow up. What is in young children an apparently general capacity has become a remarkable rarity in adults. . . .

   The rarity of eidetic memory, coupled with the fact that to possess such a capacity does not seem to make for much success in life, suggests that it may not be so beneficial a gift. To be able to synthesize and generalize from past events, to abstract from them, indeed to forget them, may thus be as essential for survival and effective action in the world as is the capacity to remember them in the first case. (Rose, 1993, pp. 103104, 102-103)