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posted by
janrinok
on Friday April 18 2014, @12:52AM
from the did-I-forget-to-mention-the-chimp? dept.
from the did-I-forget-to-mention-the-chimp? dept.
Robert Krulwich at NPR writes, "Many have tried to outperform Ayumu (that's the chimp's name), but when you see how easy it is for him, how matter-of-factly he gets things right, it's clear he's got a talent that's built in. It's not a talent you'd expect a chimp to have, but, hey, this isn't a trick. Nature isn't pro-human or pro-chimp. It's just nature." [Contains link to YouTube video]
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by drussell on Friday April 18 2014, @01:51AM
When I was in grade 2 the school suggested to my parents that I be tested because while I was an excellent student, I always seemed bored and would often talk too much and disturb those around me. One of the things the testers did was a memory test using cards with patterns that were placed in a sequence that would be shown for a few seconds (starting with longer and less cards, then reducing the time and increasing the complexity) then they'd cover it up and I had to replicate it. I still vividly remember the tester (Mr. Jones) being flabbergasted and remarking that I was able to do even the fastest, most advanced test correctly, far faster than he'd ever seen before.
One of the results of those tests was that I do, indeed, have an eidetic memory. They suggested that I could easily skip ahead to grade 3 or even 4 in school if I wanted to but it was up to me. Since I was already physically the smallest kid in the class and I really didn't want to leave my sister (who was in the same class) behind I decided not to jump ahead, was really just too scared, but I seriously considered it.
It sure helped me in school through the years, though! By high school my sister really found it annoying that everything seemed to come so easily to me while she studied intently to remain a top student. I never studied. If I'd at least looked at the textbook, for example, in a test I could just think of the page and read it from my mind or refer to a graph or a table... Once I see something I can generally recall it in detail, even years later. My mom always wonders how I remember so much, even from early childhood. It's just burned in there like an EPROM programmer! :)
HOWEVER, there's NO WAY I could do that test with as quick of a flash as that chimp! (At least not without a WHOLE LOT of practice!) Very impressive. Until now I had never even considered that kind of ability might exist in chimps and certainly not to this degree, but I fully understand how it can be done.
Very, very interesting research!
(Score: 2) by hankwang on Friday April 18 2014, @06:47AM
You claim an eidetic memory. Could you comment on what Wikipedia writes? In particular: "...of the people rigorously scientifically tested, no one claiming to have long-term eidetic memory has proven this ability."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 2) by drussell on Friday April 18 2014, @08:02AM
I certainly do NOT have the "total recall" type of totally instant photographic memory, (I doubt that anyone does) however I know my memory has ways of functioning outside what most people experience. I am not a scientist or scholar in this field and I make no claims that this is true on any kind of really scientific level.
I should have qualified that better in my previous comment.
Thanks for pointing that out.
hankwang++
(Score: 1) by kbahey on Sunday April 20 2014, @02:53AM
I had this photographic memory in high school and university. I could remember the professor narrating the topic and I could remember how the page looked like, layout, what is written, ...etc. And yes, I did not need to study anything that I remember with this photographic memory. It was all there.
The catch is that all this worked only for subjects that I was interested in, but not for the ones that were "hard" (i.e. I had an aversion to, or lacked interest in).
Over time, this faculty did not hold. Whether it is age, or computers/browsing, I don't know ...
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