I have tried memorizing the value of pi that is 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288… (goes on and on) and I confess that during most of my O levels and A Levels I just wrote 3.142. Imagine someone who would recite the value of pi till 22514 yes that is twenty two thousand five hundred and fourteen digits. Well I have difficulty imagining such a person, yet it is some of the easy tasks for Kim Peek. Kim can hold a book in his hands and with his right eye reads right page and with left eye left page. After reading he can recall both the pages almost perfectly!! This is called Eidetic or Photographic Memory – Total recall. It’s not me and you who are amazed at his remarkable memory, apparently NASA are also among the ones who were fancied. They have taken MRI scans of Kim Peek’s brain. However experts refer to the eidetic memory as watching a picture for some time and then reproducing it in exact details.
It is to be noted that there is a difference between Eidetic Memory and Trained Memory. Most of the feats of memory like the total recall of pieces of chess by chess masters are due to the training and practice.
As medical science is progressing, it is revolutionizing the way we see shortcomings. Modern medicine would enable a person to develop his full potential. The researches in the medicines to develop the memorizing abilities have resulted in wonderful drugs. One such group of medicine to watch is “Ampakines” – The Ampa receptor modulators.
Eidetic Memory
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