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Speaker 1: Attention world. If you can make it to America, then

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Speaker 1: come see us. We are going out on the road

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Speaker 1: for s Y s K Live again, and we are

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Speaker 1: going to start the whole thing off in Chicago on July,

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Speaker 1: that's right. And if you can't make it to America,

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Speaker 1: maybe make it to Canada, because we're gonna be in

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Speaker 1: Toronto and the next night and Fourth Music Hall. Then

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Speaker 1: in August, we're gonna do a couple of dates at

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Speaker 1: the Wilburn Boston in October twenty nine. In Portland Mainz

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Speaker 1: Lovely State Theater on August, and then we're going to

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Speaker 1: be heading down to Florida. We're gonna be at PLASA

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Speaker 1: Live on October nine, and then the next night we're

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Speaker 1: going to be in New Orleans at the Civic Theater.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and then we're gonna round it out in

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Speaker 1: Brooklyn October at the Bellhouse. Yep. So come see us.

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Speaker 1: You can get tickets and info at s Y s

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Speaker 1: K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works? Hey,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's

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Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, and the ghost of

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Speaker 1: Jerry Rowland just seated next to us, just Frank the chair.

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Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, hey Frank, Yeah, Jerry. Everyone has a

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Speaker 1: hurt shoulder from bowling. Let's to go to the doctor.

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Speaker 1: And uh did that deal which she's only done a

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Speaker 1: couple of times where she just hits record and leaves

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Speaker 1: and it always feels like the teacher is gone. It

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Speaker 1: feels really weird in here, and that we should like

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Speaker 1: do something disruptive and wrong. So we're practicing paper airplanes. Basically,

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Speaker 1: it's the worst thing we could come up with, doing spitballs.

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Speaker 1: Josh just threw a couple of Pence's up pencils up

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Speaker 1: and stuck them in the ceiling. I still got it,

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Speaker 1: remember that old move? Sure, well clearly. And uh what else? Um,

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Speaker 1: we started a fire in the metal waste basket. Yeah. Uh,

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Speaker 1: Chuck's trying out drugs. Sure, and uh we started listening

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Speaker 1: to Miley Crewe. That's right. And we're gonna talk about

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Speaker 1: photographic memory, which, as it turns out, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: not real. Yeah, it's a semantic thing, photographic memory. As

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Speaker 1: you it's funny that we're talking about being an elementary school,

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Speaker 1: because that's it's sort of one of those things that

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Speaker 1: used to hear a lot on the playground about you know,

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Speaker 1: so and so has got a photographic memory. You know,

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Speaker 1: they can read a book and like recite every word

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Speaker 1: from it or something. There's something so juvenile about claiming

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Speaker 1: that you have it yourself as an adult. Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: playground thing I hadn't put my finger on. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: And as it turns out, what you call photographic memory

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Speaker 1: isn't really a thing. There are people with amazing memories

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Speaker 1: and people with amazing uh techniques to develop better memories.

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Speaker 1: But this whole notion of a photographic memory, like you

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Speaker 1: could walk you know, like you see on TV or something,

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Speaker 1: isn't really a thing. No. No, it's a from TV,

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Speaker 1: it's a thing from books. It's it's something that you know,

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Speaker 1: you attribute to like Sherlock Holmes or just some great

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Speaker 1: genius us. Sure, obviously everybody knows you had a photographic memory. Um,

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Speaker 1: but the the idea that that, yeah, you can just

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Speaker 1: walk around, have an experience or you know, flipped through

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Speaker 1: a phone book and like a year later recite that

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Speaker 1: phone book. That doesn't happen. There's maybe one person who's

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Speaker 1: ever lived that came very close to that who we

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Speaker 1: talked about before. Kim Peak the the inspiration for rain Man,

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Speaker 1: but um, they're still not sure if kim Peak would

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Speaker 1: have really fully fit that bill even Yeah, but for

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Speaker 1: the most part, that idea is not It isn't it's

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Speaker 1: not real. But again it's also a question of semantics,

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Speaker 1: because if someone has the abilities of a kim Peak,

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Speaker 1: it's like, well, you know, isn't that photographic memory basically? Right? Right? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I think maybe. Then let's say it like this. There,

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Speaker 1: anyone who says that they have a photographic memory is

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Speaker 1: probably full of it. Yes, they probably have a better

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Speaker 1: than average memory, that's what they're saying. But that doesn't

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Speaker 1: mean that they have a perfect memory. Because here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Even people with outstanding amazing memory abilities, they still get

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Speaker 1: stuff wrong. And that seems to be part and parcel

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Speaker 1: with this idea of a photographic memory, that not only

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Speaker 1: is the recall amazing over long periods of time and

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Speaker 1: in detail and clarity, but that it's flawless too. That

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Speaker 1: they don't get stuff wrong, they don't insert stuff that

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Speaker 1: wasn't there originally, they don't misremember things. That's part of

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Speaker 1: the photographic memory, and that doesn't exist for sure. That

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Speaker 1: would be perfect recall, and the brain just isn't really

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Speaker 1: capable of that. All right. Well, we're gonna start out

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Speaker 1: this episode though, talking about something else that's a slight

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Speaker 1: variation which is called idetic memory I D E T

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Speaker 1: I C. And that is something found exclusively in kids

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Speaker 1: between the ages of six and twelve, roughly about two

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Speaker 1: kids during in that age group. Yeah, So here's what

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Speaker 1: they do for these tests. You get a subject. You

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Speaker 1: get a little six year old or seven year old,

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Speaker 1: or an eight year old, nine year older, ten year older,

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Speaker 1: eleven year old or twelve year old. Okay, but no,

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Speaker 1: no more beyond that. Uh, And then you show them

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Speaker 1: an image. Kid can look at it for whatever seconds.

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Speaker 1: Then you take that image away, and then he say,

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Speaker 1: what do you recall about that image? And if you

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Speaker 1: have idetic memory, uh, for a very short term, you

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Speaker 1: can recall with astonishing detail what was in that image. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe another thirty seconds, maybe up to a couple of minutes.

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Speaker 1: And there's a lot going on here, all right, So

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Speaker 1: it's not like here, look at this image and then

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Speaker 1: that you take the image away and the kid goes

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Speaker 1: over and sits down and like really thinks about what

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Speaker 1: was in the picture. The kid holds the pose and

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Speaker 1: their line of sight just like they were when the

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Speaker 1: picture was in front of them, as if they're still

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Speaker 1: looking at the picture. And here's the thing about idetic memory.

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Speaker 1: The kid who's showing off there, and people who have

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Speaker 1: idetic memory are called identic Ersay, I know it's weird,

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Speaker 1: but um, the identic er isn't recalling what they saw.

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Speaker 1: They never stopped seeing. They're holding it visually in their

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Speaker 1: line of sight, even though the picture is no longer

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Speaker 1: physically present. Yeah. And one of the ways they can

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Speaker 1: tell is that they talk about it in the present

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Speaker 1: tent Still they don't say, well, the picture had a

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Speaker 1: red car with a weird looking dog driving it, Right,

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Speaker 1: it's it's present tense. It's the picture has a red

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Speaker 1: car with a weird looking dog driving it. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So that's a big it's a big one, right. That's

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Speaker 1: people think, well, that's photographic memory. But that's really the

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Speaker 1: closest thing to photographic memory that science has really happened upon. Well,

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Speaker 1: one of them will get into another one in a

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Speaker 1: little while, but there's a lot of a lot of

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Speaker 1: divergence from what you tend to think of as photographic memory.

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Speaker 1: For one, Again, it's a very short duration thirty seconds,

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Speaker 1: a couple of minutes, and then five minutes later they

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Speaker 1: talk about the picture, and the kids like what what picture?

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Speaker 1: What picture? Where am I? Why? Why did you drug

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Speaker 1: me and tie me up? Apparently even them speaking during

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Speaker 1: this period or even blinking can shut it off. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and especially not just speaking but saying what the thing

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Speaker 1: is saying out loud. Oh, red car will make the

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Speaker 1: picture vanish from there there, almost like a trance or

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Speaker 1: something kind of it does really interesting. Uh. They can

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Speaker 1: make errors as well and put things in there that

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Speaker 1: weren't there, so that obviously is not a photographic memory. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the dog driving the car had a cat friend. That's believable.

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Speaker 1: That's really stupid. Kids. Yeah. By the way, everyone, the

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Speaker 1: cats and the dogs are getting along great. Just to

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Speaker 1: update that everyone's getting along fine. But we have a

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Speaker 1: one of the kittens is a bed pier, and so

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Speaker 1: we're trying to sort that out, which is not a

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Speaker 1: fun problem. You know what. The solution to that is

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Speaker 1: kitty diapers, the cutest diapers. Yeah, yeah, we're getting through that.

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Speaker 1: Not what do you do? You just like clap loudly

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Speaker 1: next to it. Yeah, you try, you know, if you

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Speaker 1: catch them, you try and hustle them really quickly into

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Speaker 1: the litter box. The whole idea is that get to

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Speaker 1: get them associating litter with being, and so it's just like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but usually cats are really intuitive. I've never had a

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Speaker 1: cat that wasn't like immediately just literally trained. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: this is a little bit distressing. How long has it

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Speaker 1: been going on. We've had like three or four bed piece.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's not too bad. They'll pick it up in

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Speaker 1: no time. Uh. But anyway, I just want to update everyone. So, oh,

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Speaker 1: is this true about the idetic memory Uh studies being

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Speaker 1: done by the Nazis? Is that correct? Yeah, the the

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Speaker 1: Nazis found out about this. I'm not quite sure how,

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Speaker 1: but their attributed with some of the earliest studies of

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Speaker 1: idetic memory, and they, in Nazi fashion, gave it a

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Speaker 1: really bad name because they were using it to promote

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Speaker 1: how the Aryan race was obviously superior because our kids

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Speaker 1: have idetic memory. And so since you know, just about

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Speaker 1: anything the Nazis studied, whether it was legitimate studies or not,

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Speaker 1: it just had a taint to it. Afterward, I choked,

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Speaker 1: if you will, Nazi stank pretty much right, and so

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Speaker 1: um they it was discontinued for many decades, and then

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Speaker 1: I can't find out who picked it up. It's really weird.

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Speaker 1: Like when you look up photographic memory, almost everything that

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Speaker 1: comes back for research says photographic memories not real. And

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Speaker 1: here's why. Um, there are such thing as idetic memory,

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Speaker 1: but there's almost no information on like the actual study

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Speaker 1: of it, who's conducting it. Usually it will be like

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Speaker 1: they'll even sighte like one study everyone will this doesn't

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Speaker 1: even have that. It's real cryptic almost in weird and

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Speaker 1: just I want to say, fringey. But there's nobody who

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Speaker 1: questions the science behind. It's proven that this does exist.

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Speaker 1: We know kind of the mechanics of it, how it

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Speaker 1: actually or what the process is, what's actually happening or

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Speaker 1: how kids display this stuff. We know how to test

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Speaker 1: for it. So it is real and there's that catchy

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Speaker 1: name identic urs. It's definitely a real thing. But what

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Speaker 1: how it's being studying and who's studying is just totally lost.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I can't find it well, and we don't

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Speaker 1: know you know why it's only in children or really

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Speaker 1: a whole lot of concrete conclusions about it other than

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Speaker 1: the fact that it happens. Well, there's some interesting hypotheses

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Speaker 1: about that. Let's hear it. Well, the fact that kids

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Speaker 1: from six to twelve are developing it and it stops

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Speaker 1: beyond that. Just that has to do with language development

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Speaker 1: and the fact that if you verbalize what the thing is,

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Speaker 1: you've labeled it in a certain way and shut your

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Speaker 1: brain off. That suggests that has to do with labeled

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Speaker 1: or language development too. They think that maybe the kids

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Speaker 1: are not compartmentalizing what they saw in abstracts like people

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Speaker 1: do with normal memories, and so it's able to stay

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Speaker 1: in their in their visual field even after they're no

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Speaker 1: longer looking at it. Interesting. Yeah, But about two to

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Speaker 1: idetic memory, Well, it is interesting though because the word

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Speaker 1: photographic memory. This sounds as close to that as it gets,

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Speaker 1: because it almost sounds like they are taking a sort

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Speaker 1: of a brain snapshot, because they're just sort of in

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Speaker 1: a trance and gazing at what it once was. But again,

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Speaker 1: they can't move, they can't speak, they can't blink, and

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Speaker 1: with you know, five minutes later, once they do blink

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Speaker 1: or whatever and snap out of this trance. If you

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Speaker 1: want to call it that, which clearly do. Um, so

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Speaker 1: we will. We'll just call it trance. Once they step

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Speaker 1: out of the trance, Um, they can't recall the picture.

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Speaker 1: So it's not it's not a very good example of

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Speaker 1: photographic memory. But it's the closest thing science has shown

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Speaker 1: aside from some other ones. Let's talk about later, all right,

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Speaker 1: Should we take a break? I think we should. All right,

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Speaker 1: let's do it and we'll talk more about PM right

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Speaker 1: after this. Alright, So, um, they have not found any

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Speaker 1: like again, science hasn't come forward and said, hey, there

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Speaker 1: is photographic memory and this is it and this is

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Speaker 1: how it works. Right, All those people who are like

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Speaker 1: promoting themselves with having a photographic memory, they no one

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Speaker 1: they no one's gotten their hands on one of them

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Speaker 1: and say, this guy is totally right that he has

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Speaker 1: a photographic memory, or she right, or they that's right,

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Speaker 1: But that it's still something you hear on the playground.

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Speaker 1: It's still something you hear people tout. And there's a

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Speaker 1: few reasons why. Um. One one is and this kind

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Speaker 1: of has to do with the perfect pitch is. I

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Speaker 1: think humans just like to label and assign geniuses with

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Speaker 1: these tags like you know, Tesla had a photographic memory,

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Speaker 1: and it's very easy just to write that down and

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Speaker 1: it looks cool on a piece of paper. Um, And

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Speaker 1: that's kind of just as simple as that. He he

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Speaker 1: apparently was self proclaimed with a photographic memory. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people say this about themselves. He doesn't seem like

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Speaker 1: the type who would do that. He seems like the

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Speaker 1: type that people would say about him without him claiming it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but Mr T is one who claims to have a

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Speaker 1: photo Really so I saw Wow, so he could list

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Speaker 1: all the fools He's pittied right, all of them. I'm

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Speaker 1: wearring eighteen change right now. It doesn't even have to

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Speaker 1: look down. Wow, who else? You got anyone else? Teddy Roosevelt,

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Speaker 1: Uh Truman, capodikay um, Leonardo da Vinci. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: if he was self proclaimed or if people just again

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Speaker 1: kind of ascribed it to him because he's a genius,

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Speaker 1: he is a da Vinci. But it is it's like

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Speaker 1: that that um, that kind of thing, like mythologizing extraordinarily

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Speaker 1: smart people. Well, we equate memory with intelligence, kind of

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Speaker 1: like Sherlock Holmes. Right, of course he's gonna have a

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Speaker 1: photographic memory. He's a highly intelligent person. Um so anybody

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Speaker 1: who seems extremely intelligent, genius level intelligence, especially someone in history,

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Speaker 1: we would describe something like a photographic right to him. Well,

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Speaker 1: there was an author name Cava, this Wanathon who there

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Speaker 1: was a case where this author was um accused of

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Speaker 1: plagiarism from another author. And Kaba was like, uh no,

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Speaker 1: I just have a photographic memory. And I'm sure I

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Speaker 1: read that book, but it was just so like burned

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Speaker 1: into my brain that I must have just repeated these

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Speaker 1: things without even knowing about it. She said that in

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Speaker 1: the New York Times, and so that gave occasion for

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Speaker 1: a lot of journalists and scientists to come for and

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Speaker 1: be like, by the way, everybody, there's no such thing

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Speaker 1: as photographic memory. So but there is a thing as

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Speaker 1: plagiarism there. Yeah, I was looking. I was like, what

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Speaker 1: were some of the some of the examples that was

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Speaker 1: pretty bad. In the original book, there was a line

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Speaker 1: in truly massochistic fashion, they chose to buy diet cokes

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Speaker 1: at Cinnabon. Okay, that's the original. The the plagiarized one

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Speaker 1: is in truly masochistic gesture, they chose to buy diet

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Speaker 1: cokes at Mrs fields. Yeah, that's plagiarism. Yeah it is.

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Speaker 1: That's not even like, that's plagiarism. One o one, like

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Speaker 1: they I'll swap out one word for a like word

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Speaker 1: and then it's fine and like crazy. She said this

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Speaker 1: in the New York Times. It was a photographic memory,

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Speaker 1: though it's not my fault. Another reason this is still

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Speaker 1: sort of out there in the public sphere is um

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Speaker 1: is the fact that there are people with amazing memories,

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Speaker 1: and there are memory competitions and memory uh exhibitions and

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Speaker 1: things like that. Yeah. I looked into that, Chuck, I

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Speaker 1: really so I got sucked into memory. I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, I forgot how cool memory stuff is. We

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Speaker 1: do a few podcasts on it. We talked about it

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Speaker 1: in cann of Thinking, Ca't make Me a Genius. We

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Speaker 1: talked about in a podcast to Remember Our Memory one.

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Speaker 1: We talked about it extensively in the Amnesia episode. Just

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Speaker 1: some good stuff. And there's more we could do. But

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Speaker 1: one of them is this whole idea of mind sports,

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Speaker 1: which includes memory, but it is organized competitions to to

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Speaker 1: show off your memory skills. There's actually five mind sports

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Speaker 1: memory mind mapping, which is a form of like taking

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Speaker 1: notes with like icons and colors and stuff. It's really neat. Like,

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Speaker 1: if you ever really need to commit something to memory,

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Speaker 1: look into mind mapping, speed reading i Q, which is

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Speaker 1: a little iffy to me, and then creative thinking. Like

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Speaker 1: there's a mind sport competition for creative thinking. I was like,

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Speaker 1: what is that? And you'll be given a question like

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Speaker 1: a little passage that says, like the alphabet makes no sense.

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Speaker 1: No one can make heads or tails of why it

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Speaker 1: follows the order it does. Put the alphabet into a

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Speaker 1: sensible order and explain how it makes sense. Stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: So there's people who are answering these questions coming up

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Speaker 1: with a creative system that makes sense. Though, right, it's

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Speaker 1: got to make sense. Yeah, you lose, you'd lose, you'd

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Speaker 1: be running out of town on a rail. Yeah, it's Um,

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Speaker 1: it sounds really neat, But there's there's with memory in particular.

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Speaker 1: There's the World Memory Championship and they're being held in Wuhan,

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Speaker 1: China this December two nine. Well, you think of a

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Speaker 1: show like Jeopardy, and um, there are things that you

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Speaker 1: can certainly figure out question and answer wise on Jeopardy,

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Speaker 1: But I would say most of that is recall it

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Speaker 1: is recall. And that's the same thing with mine sports too.

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Speaker 1: Like if you if you talk to a world memory champion,

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Speaker 1: there's one in particular named Dominic O'Brien who is what

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Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just funny to think of these

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Speaker 1: like a picture of walking in with his boxing robe.

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Speaker 1: He know, he's more them. You'd find him with like

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Speaker 1: a neat scotch and a cigarette going in like a

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Speaker 1: dark bar somewhere. He just strikes me that a super friendly,

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Speaker 1: neat guy. And he's just like mumbling presidential returns over

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Speaker 1: the past fig you know, he's like running numbers or

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Speaker 1: something like that. That's my guest. And he's like a

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Speaker 1: bookie in a bar or something. That's what he strikes

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Speaker 1: me as. All right again, really nice guy. I don't

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Speaker 1: know he's doing anything illegal, but a British man named

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Speaker 1: Dominic just strikes me as like a bookie anyway. He's

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Speaker 1: an eight time World memory Champion, World memory champion, and

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Speaker 1: he'll tell you like it's all training, it's practice, it's

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Speaker 1: nemonic devices, and just about anybody who is involved in

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Speaker 1: mind sports will say it's all it's all practice, and

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Speaker 1: it's using techniques to expand your memory, which is really

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Speaker 1: amazing because what these guys are doing, um, one of

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Speaker 1: them is is card reading. They will give you a

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Speaker 1: deck of cards and you will go through scan it

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Speaker 1: in order, maybe be given a minute to scan it,

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Speaker 1: maybe three minutes something like that. You'll put it down

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Speaker 1: and then twenty minutes later they'll ask you to recall

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Speaker 1: the deck in the order of the cards. And these

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Speaker 1: guys like get it flawlessly perfect. That's pretty amazing. It

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Speaker 1: is amazing. But they are saying, like, I have learned

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Speaker 1: to do this. I was not born like this. I

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Speaker 1: don't have a photographic memory. I'm using things like devices

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Speaker 1: that are that are are techniques to help me remember stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's this, Um, have you ever heard of a memory palace? Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: so a memory palace. Then it's just like building a

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Speaker 1: castle or whatever, and like different rooms or where you

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Speaker 1: put different things and specifically you might have a drawer

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Speaker 1: for a specific thing and you remember where that specific

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Speaker 1: thing is because you placed it in that drawer in

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Speaker 1: that room in your palace that you've built in your mind. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's a very helpful way to remember things for sure. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And also shout out to a friend of the show

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Speaker 1: and Nate to Mayo and his great Yes, the Memory

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Speaker 1: the Memory Past. Oh my gosh, I never I never

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Speaker 1: put two and two together. Nate's still around, still a

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Speaker 1: great show. Well sure, sure, I don't think he died

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Speaker 1: or anything, but I'm saying like I knew, I knew

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Speaker 1: his His show is named The Memory Place connection. I

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Speaker 1: never did. You should have put it in the Memory Palace.

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Speaker 1: That is a great name, Nate, and that is a

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Speaker 1: great I liked it even more before, but I was

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Speaker 1: just taking it more like like Tolkien sell her door,

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Speaker 1: like it was just pretty, you know what I mean. So, um,

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Speaker 1: there have been some connections that people have made with

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Speaker 1: sinnist eats and uh people with supposedly photographic memories. Um.

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Speaker 1: There's a writer named Solomon Schefski who was a writer

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Speaker 1: I think I already said that in the twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century, and he had these really

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Speaker 1: amazing powers of memory, and he uses uh or used

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Speaker 1: pneumonic techniques like we talked about he did. But he

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Speaker 1: was also a cinnist eat. So the point was made

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Speaker 1: here was that he basically had been doing this his

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Speaker 1: whole life involuntarily because of associations that cynistats make with

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Speaker 1: color and sound and shape and things like that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's how that's how a memory becomes all more solid,

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Speaker 1: is associated with an emotion or a physical sensation. And um,

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Speaker 1: he was a multiple synisty, right, So rather than say,

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Speaker 1: like a sound having a color, this guy when he

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Speaker 1: heard a bell ring, he saw white, tasted salt water,

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Speaker 1: and sense something small and round from the sound of

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Speaker 1: a bell. He he would not read the paper while

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Speaker 1: he was eating because the tastes that the words on

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Speaker 1: the page evoked would compete with the taste of the food.

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Speaker 1: He was like, he would he had it just powerfully synesthesia.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. Um, so yeah, he couldn't help but

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Speaker 1: have an amazing memory. Pretty cool. Um. The neemonic devices

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Speaker 1: everyone uses those in school or they'd tell you that's

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Speaker 1: a good way to remember things. Um. But then there's also,

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Speaker 1: um what and this is a grabstor article what he

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Speaker 1: just called relentless obsession. And you know, when you if

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Speaker 1: you want to go on Jeopardy, memorize the constitution, memorize

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Speaker 1: every state flag, every state bird, every state motto. It's

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Speaker 1: like it's if you pour yourself into that kind of study,

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Speaker 1: and you're obsessed over memorizing a certain thing, then you

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Speaker 1: could probably do it over time, right, Yeah, um, ed

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Speaker 1: uses the example of them what are they called the

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Speaker 1: shas Pollock, Yes, who were a sect of Polish Jews

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Speaker 1: who memorized the Babylonian Talmud, which, as from what I gather,

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Speaker 1: one of two versions of the Talmud. I think they're

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Speaker 1: like eight or twelve books. It's a lot, yeah, like

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Speaker 1: five thousand pages. And these these guys would they would

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Speaker 1: remember the Talmud so precisely that a case study from

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen based on eyewitness accounts said that you could

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Speaker 1: put a pin on a word on one page and

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Speaker 1: push the pin through, say fifty pages, and they could

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Speaker 1: tell you the word that that pin came out on

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Speaker 1: the fifty pages ahead. So that's geography too kind of.

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Speaker 1: That's a really good example of a potential photographic memory, right,

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Speaker 1: but also example of obsession. Um. I did a little

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Speaker 1: more reading on them too. They were known as uh

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Speaker 1: Numonists for neumonic. It's interesting. That's just I don't know,

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Speaker 1: I think that might have been a early Eastern European

408
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Speaker 1: and Russian name for someone with amazing memory because the Sheerschewski. Um.

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Speaker 1: He was written about as a patient just by the

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Speaker 1: pseudonym s by a psychologist, very famous psychologist named Alexander Luria,

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Speaker 1: and he he titled his paper book The Mind of

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Speaker 1: a New Honest. So I wonder if that was like

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Speaker 1: an old timey word for like somebody with an amazing memory.

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Speaker 1: That's probably word? What is that? Namu? Oh yeah, I

415
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Speaker 1: like I like yours more? Th Another thing is that

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Speaker 1: a lot of times when someone you might think or

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Speaker 1: they claim to have a photographic memory, it's on a

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Speaker 1: very specific, um thing that they are obsessed with, Like

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Speaker 1: a chess player may be able to memorize like these

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Speaker 1: incredibly complex sequences or games that they played, but may

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Speaker 1: not have a great memory otherwise of other things. I

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Speaker 1: can't remember their anniversary, asked their wives. Yeah you know

423
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,439
Speaker 1: for sure? Um, who's this other guy? John Van Newman?

424
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 1: He was a mathematical genius and he could recite chapters

425
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 1: of books and pages of the phone book. But apparently

426
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:28,919
Speaker 1: he was like that was sort of where it ended.

427
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 1: He didn't have like a memory outside of like these

428
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: very specific things. Right. He also never claimed to have

429
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: a photographic memory, which is pretty cool. Because if anybody

430
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:42,199
Speaker 1: could claim that he was definitely one of them, and

431
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 1: he was a polymath just straight up genius in general,

432
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: it's a great varied thinker. Yeah. He I read somewhere

433
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: that he used to tell jokes with his dad in

434
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: in classical Greek at age six, which I mean, if

435
00:25:56,119 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: you're doing that at age six with your dad, it's

436
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 1: a specific type of household you're being raised. And yeah,

437
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 1: that Stephen Wiltshire guy is pretty interesting. Um. I remember

438
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: seeing something on him a while ago. I think we

439
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: talked about him in the Thinking Cap episode two. Yeah,

440
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: that might have been it. He's from London and is

441
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: has autism and he's the guy who, you know it

442
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: takes a helicopter ride over Berlin Lands and then draws

443
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:27,120
Speaker 1: it and like astonishing detail. Yes, but and it is astonishing.

444
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: But and people put him up as an example of

445
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: photographic memory. There are flaws in the recollection, in the telling.

446
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 1: These are renderings are not architecturally precise. Yeah, but still,

447
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: I mean better than it's astonishing. No. I think what's

448
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: astonishing is is the art. And I think people should

449
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:46,400
Speaker 1: just like lay off the photographic memory part of it

450
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 1: and just say Stephen Wiltscher is an amazing artist who

451
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: I can see a scene and encapsulated on paper with

452
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 1: ease or seeming ease. Yeah, And then you really can't

453
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: start a conversation about memory of any kind without talking

454
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: about Kim Peak, who we mentioned earlier, who was again

455
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: the the the inspiration for rain Man, but was much

456
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: more friendly, much more outgoing, much happier than rain Man was. Yeah,

457
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:17,360
Speaker 1: he was a real jerk. He was real. He wasn't

458
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 1: a jerk, but he was much more introverted. Kim Peek

459
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 1: was much more happy, go lucky, and like very talkative

460
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 1: and curious and um. For a very long time he

461
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: was considered to have had autism, but now they think

462
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,360
Speaker 1: he had f G syndrome, which is a very specific

463
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: genetic disorder UM that's characterized by people who are friendly, inquisitive, hyperactive,

464
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 1: and have a short attention span. And from what I understand,

465
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: that describes Kim Peak to a key to T yeah,

466
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: not a key to a KP. He would his his

467
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 1: whole thing. I mean, he had a great memory, but

468
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: he had basically memorized the calendar. And when you say calendar,

469
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:03,360
Speaker 1: you mean like that means the calendar of the past. Tuesday.

470
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that. Yeah, but what day was, uh, you know,

471
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: July first, nineteen seventy seven. He can say, well, that

472
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:15,679
Speaker 1: was the Thursday, and on this state, these things happened.

473
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: That kind of memory, yeah, which is pretty astounding in

474
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 1: and of itself. But he was also able to do

475
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: things like read the phone book two pages at a time. Yeah.

476
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 1: Now that's just off the charts. This is he may

477
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: be the only human being who is ever born capable

478
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,200
Speaker 1: of doing. Yeah. His left eye was reading one page

479
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: and his right eye would read another page. Okay, astounding

480
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: that he could do that just visually optically. Yes, he

481
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: would retain this thing, and he could tell you the

482
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: phone number of somebody's name. You went back and and

483
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: said what is you know, what is John von Newman's

484
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: phone number? And he'd say the phone and would be like, really,

485
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 1: I don't want to call him. I'll talk you about

486
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: to say John bon Jovi for a second. I'm excited.

487
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: I have a joke in Greek. Yeah, I mean that's

488
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: that is. Let's let it that part out really, okay, Um. Really,

489
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: here's the thing with Peak though, is we talked a

490
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 1: lot about the Corpus colossum in the uh what's it

491
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: called restless hand syndrome, alien Han syndrome one of our

492
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: early early podcasts. That's right, I forgot that showed up

493
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: with the corpus colossum. We talked about it a bunch

494
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: of a bunch of shows. But that's what connects it

495
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: to hemispheres. Kimpek does not have a corpus colossum, like

496
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: not severed, not cut apart, not partial. It did not

497
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: grow in his brain. So he has two independent hemispheres

498
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: of his brain. And so when his left eye is

499
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 1: inputting all this stuff and his right eyes inputting all

500
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: this stuff, his brain can recall it separately but together.

501
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 1: That's just astounding. Is he still with us? No, he

502
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: died a few years ago. I don't remember of what

503
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: and like he was in his sixties, I believe. All right,

504
00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:00,440
Speaker 1: Well r I p MR Peak and let's take a

505
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: break now, and then we'll talk about a woman named

506
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: Jil Price right after this, all right, as promised, we're

507
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: gonna talk about Jill Price, who I remember from the

508
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: news in two thousand six is when she kind of

509
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 1: hit hit the big time with the news and she

510
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: was the one that she's called the woman who cannot

511
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: forget and pretty accurately because she has an audit. Well

512
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: they now they could call it a couple of things. Now, Um,

513
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: I saw H S a M. Highly superior autobiographical memory,

514
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: and then another condition called hyperthsmea thymesia hyperthymesia, Yeah with

515
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: a y in seventy that was this misspelled? Okay? Um

516
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: and to delete my correction, And hyper means excessive obviously,

517
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: and then thymesis is remembering, so it's excessive remembering. I like,

518
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 1: highly superior autobiographical memory though, yeah, and I saw where

519
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: they found they know of at least sixty other people

520
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: that have H S a M. Whereas this said only

521
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: to other people have been diagnosed with hyperthymesia. Right, it's

522
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: the same thing, it is. It's the exact same thing. Okay,

523
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: So are there sixty people or they're three? There's sixty

524
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: one from what I understand. Okay, Well, she can't forget stuff,

525
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,560
Speaker 1: and these people apparently, you know, if you go back

526
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: and say what were you doing, you know, fourteen years

527
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: ago and two months in two days, or give them

528
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: a date date usually and then they will be able

529
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: to say what they did, what they were wearing, who

530
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: they were with what was on TV. Yeah, but the

531
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: thing is, so this is so you say, okay, great, fine,

532
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: we found these are the people with photographic memories. Not really,

533
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:12,479
Speaker 1: because it's highly superior autobiographical memory, and that is a

534
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: very specific kind of memory. It's a type of episodic memory.

535
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: Episodic memories are personal memories, memories you generate as opposed

536
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: to semantic memory, which is memories that you make of

537
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: things like um uh, a car has two axles or

538
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: something stupid like that, like a fact that you recall,

539
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: rather than an autobiographical memory. So the the semantic memory

540
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: is normal in in people with HSAM or hyperthymesia. It's

541
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 1: the autobiographical stuff that is astoundingly photographic. Yeah, and people

542
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: also tried after she came out and made a you know,

543
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: kind of a big splash on the news programs, there

544
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 1: were people trying to poke holes in her condition, saying

545
00:32:56,480 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: that like, well, starting in her teenage year, she started

546
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 1: keeping these obsessively detailed diaries every day as well. Um,

547
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: which sure that can help. But just because you write

548
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 1: an obsessively detailed diary every day doesn't mean you're gonna

549
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:14,960
Speaker 1: remember it five years later, right, No, that's that's exactly

550
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: the point, right. Yeah, maybe she is even using nemonics

551
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 1: to solidify it even further. But the fact that you

552
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:23,479
Speaker 1: can give her a date at random and she can

553
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 1: remember it without consulting her her journal, um, it's pretty impressive.

554
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: It's definitely its own thing. And there's there's a pretty

555
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: widespread consensus that this is a real condition. But the

556
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: fact that you said it, she she keeps an obsessively

557
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 1: organized journal. Um. They believe it's possible that it's linked

558
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: to obsessive compulsive disorder. That the brains of people with

559
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 1: hyperthymesia UM have have the same traits, the same structures, um,

560
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: that people who have o c D have, and they'll

561
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: very frequently have kind of this co morbid collection of

562
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 1: stuff or um. They have traits that somebody, yeah, somebody

563
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: with o c D might have. I also wonder if

564
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 1: it has anything to do with narcissism. Oh really, I

565
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:16,360
Speaker 1: don't know, man. It's autobiographical. Yeah, like they remember everything

566
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: about their life, but they might not be able to

567
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: tell you, like you know who the president is. But

568
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: the okay, if it is narcissism, it's a mass a kid, No,

569
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 1: it's a massochistic. That's the one where you're bad to yourself, right,

570
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:37,400
Speaker 1: mean to yourself, because this is sort of a curse. UM.

571
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:39,800
Speaker 1: So if you if you see interviews with Jill Price,

572
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: she's not a happy person by any stretch of the

573
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:47,840
Speaker 1: imagination because part of this condition is not being able

574
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 1: to forget like emotions attached to things. Yeah, she she

575
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: after a very long time, met a man and married

576
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:57,799
Speaker 1: him and they were very very close. Like she she

577
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 1: said later that that he just got her. He is

578
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: the first person to ever just get her and accept

579
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 1: her for who she was. Um. Other family and friends

580
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 1: would be like, can you not just let this go?

581
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: Can you not get over something that happened twenty years ago?

582
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:12,799
Speaker 1: And she's like, no, I really can't. This guy just

583
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: accepted her and then of course he dies young from

584
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: I think cancer or something like that. So UM, rather

585
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 1: than going through the morning period in grieving like a

586
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: person normally would time healing all wounds, that does not

587
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,279
Speaker 1: apply to somebody or hyperthiamesia because when they think of

588
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 1: that day again or something reminds them of that person

589
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 1: that and the memory of them is recalled, they experienced

590
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,839
Speaker 1: that same pain like they experience. UM. The first time.

591
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 1: It happens forever. They cannot forget. It does not fade

592
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: like a sci fi movie basically, but it's a real thing.

593
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: Was the Tom Cruise thing? I repeat, rain Man, Yeah,

594
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: that's it. Uh. You know who else has hyperthymesia or

595
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: highly superior autobiographical memory? I think I know this because

596
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:06,880
Speaker 1: you talked about her at length and the podcast. To

597
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 1: remember what I'll give you. I'll give you a one

598
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,399
Speaker 1: degree of separation and you'll figure it out. Okay, don't

599
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:23,360
Speaker 1: say Kevin Bacon Tony Danza what no, I didn't say. Sorry,

600
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: that was not a bad Tony Danza. Mona no um oh,

601
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 1: oh that's right. Uh. Yes, what's her name? Lisa Milana? No? No,

602
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 1: Mary Lou Henner from Taxi A Lissa Milana. Well wouldn't she?

603
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: And she just looked up from the gallery and the

604
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:46,360
Speaker 1: congressional hearing and who me? I forgot about the taxi Mary?

605
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:49,399
Speaker 1: That's right, Mary Lee has like has it? You can

606
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 1: say you'll give her a date or even like a

607
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: taxi episode. She'll start reciting lines the other person's line.

608
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: She'll talk about what she's wearing in the scene. Stuff

609
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 1: from the seventies. It's really impressive. She has the opposite experience,

610
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 1: though she loves the the the whole thing, like it's

611
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:08,720
Speaker 1: a gift to her, whereas it's a curse to jil Price.

612
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:11,879
Speaker 1: My memory is weird because I will and I'm sure

613
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 1: we talked about this in the other memory episodes, but

614
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: I can have the worst memory on the planet or

615
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,320
Speaker 1: the best, and it all just depends on whatever detail

616
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: it is. It's either in in the old brain or

617
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: it's not. Yeah, Like I can recall some very specifically

618
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 1: things that people are like, how in the world do

619
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 1: you remember that? You know? The thing that bothers me

620
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: about this is we have had so much information passed

621
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 1: through our brains and I retained so little of it.

622
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: It's almost like I really wish I had more of

623
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 1: it in there. Yeah, it's just not though. I mean,

624
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: I guess it is if you drag it, but I

625
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:50,359
Speaker 1: can't bring it to it to memory very easily. Yeah,

626
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 1: to find that couples though, whether that's you and I

627
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: or us and our individual wives can complement each other

628
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: with their memories. Yeah, and your abilities, like I'm really

629
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 1: good at remembering certain things, and Emily is really good

630
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 1: at remembering other types of things and together it's usually

631
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:13,279
Speaker 1: works out. It's a whole person, yeah, basically, But you

632
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:15,280
Speaker 1: do that too. You remember stuff that I don't remember,

633
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 1: like Mary lew Henterer, and the list goes on and on.

634
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:20,319
Speaker 1: You remember way more than I do. But I don't

635
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: remember nearly as much as I should, I think, or

636
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 1: that I wish I did. I don't deal in shouts anymore. Chuck, Right,

637
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: so should we talk about um uh, Charles Stroemeyer, John Merritt,

638
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Sure. So this was a little bit wrong,

639
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: But the way I understood from what you sent me

640
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 1: as a follow up is that Charles Stroemeyer was the

641
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 1: one who did this initial initial research at Harvard in

642
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. Is that right? Okay, So this guy

643
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 1: plays ads in newspapers. He was trying to do some

644
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,839
Speaker 1: studies on photographic memory, and all these ads were were

645
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 1: images of random dots. And you could take a test

646
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: your cell just by looking at these dots very briefly

647
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: and then trying to reproduce them. And if you did

648
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: a really good job, you would follow up by getting

649
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 1: in touch with him saying, Hey, I nailed I nailed

650
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 1: your test, dude, talk to me I do the turtle

651
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: on the matchbook just right, remember the turtle and the

652
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: turtle night. Yeah, and that there was a pirate too, right,

653
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: What was that all about? It was like an art

654
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 1: correspondence course where you learn to draw through the mail.

655
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, I think we talked about that on another episode.

656
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: Surely we have, I think. So sorry for derailing you

657
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: with the turtle thing. Now, that's okay. But that was

658
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 1: the long and short of what he was trying to

659
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: do and how he was trying to recruit subjects. And

660
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: I believe he got what like thirty people we're successful,

661
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: fifteen of which he was impressed enough by to go

662
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,800
Speaker 1: to their house and follow up with. And one person

663
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: he really followed up with. He did he found out

664
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: of the fifteen, none of them had photographic memory. But

665
00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 1: then later on he came across a woman from a

666
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: different study entirely named Elizabeth. And here's the thing. This

667
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: is nuts man. I he figured out Stromyer figured out

668
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:16,359
Speaker 1: that if you took remember the three d um so

669
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:20,319
Speaker 1: in the color Blind episode, Yeah, the magic image or

670
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: whatever where you could see the sailboat and the big

671
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: thing of dots. Right, So this thing was it didn't

672
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:27,359
Speaker 1: have to do with color. It had to do with

673
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 1: overlaying the dots to create a three D image. So

674
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:32,879
Speaker 1: you need two sets of dots and when you put

675
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: them together, they'll create like a magic I poster kind

676
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: of thing. So what Stroemyer figured out is you could

677
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,319
Speaker 1: take these two layers and separate them. Show one of

678
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: the layers to somebody you're testing for photographic memories. They

679
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:48,399
Speaker 1: really get a look at this. Okay, now I'm gonna

680
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 1: wait like a day, and then I'll show you the

681
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,959
Speaker 1: second layer. Bring to mind that first layer you saw,

682
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 1: and overlay it in your mind, and see if you

683
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: can tell me what the three D images. That's amazing.

684
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: It is amazing. And stoe Meyer found one person who

685
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 1: could do it, a woman named Elizabeth, and he married her.

686
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 1: And he married her, and the weird thing is he

687
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:10,840
Speaker 1: wrote like this whole though, this whole right up in

688
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: the journal Nature. Then he married her and no more

689
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:18,359
Speaker 1: testing after that. So took her off the market every

690
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 1: way he did. But they so they're like, well, we can't,

691
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: we can't say that this is definitely a case of

692
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 1: photographic memory. If it were true, this would be the

693
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: closest thing to photographic memory. Anyone's ever come up with. Now,

694
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,959
Speaker 1: Kim Pete holds the title, yet Elizabeth is just could

695
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:40,919
Speaker 1: be the key, right could probably not though I saw

696
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 1: that in some follow up tests. This would explain why

697
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 1: he took her off the market. That, um, she couldn't

698
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:50,359
Speaker 1: she she she couldn't do it. Really. Yeah, But then

699
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: this guy John Merritt, he came along later and used that, uh,

700
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 1: use those studies for his own purposes. He did. He

701
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:00,359
Speaker 1: found that nobody could do this, that nobody is able

702
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 1: to do that. But they did figure out that, hey,

703
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: this makes a pretty good test to find um identic rs. Yeah,

704
00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: because you don't. You don't show them one layer and

705
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 1: then take away the other layer and ask him a

706
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 1: day later. You show them one layer, ask him to

707
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: hold it in their mind, and then put the other

708
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 1: layer underneath it. And if you're an identic or, you

709
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: are typically able to see in three D and you

710
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: can go do this online. Actually, just don't blink, don't blink,

711
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: and don't say what it is you're looking at, like

712
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 1: Michael Caine always says, Oh, I've never heard him say that,

713
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 1: And that was one of he did these kind of

714
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: corny how to active video series I think at one

715
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:40,320
Speaker 1: point and Letterman used to play bits of them because

716
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 1: they were really funny. If one of them was the

717
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: secret to great acting don't blink? Was was he trying

718
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: to be funny? The Letterman would played for laughs, don't

719
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: blink and he would say he would show you know

720
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 1: scenes and he's like, look at me, I'm not blinking,

721
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 1: And then Letterman would say don't blink like out of

722
00:42:57,360 --> 00:42:59,760
Speaker 1: the blue fifty times the rest of the song. Probably

723
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: love that guy. Yeah, ah, you got anything else, No, sir,

724
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:07,839
Speaker 1: I've got one more lex Luthor. But he supposedly had

725
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 1: photographic memory. He's not real, Wellogh all the more likely

726
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 1: that he had photographic memory. Well, if you want to

727
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 1: know more about photographic memory, go take that Ideker test.

728
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 1: You'll love it. The Mr T thing is just back

729
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Maybe I pity the fool that tripped

730
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 1: me on fifty seven Street on July. Well, Chuck made

731
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 1: a Mr. T reference, which means then it's time for listening.

732
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: Maw uh. This is I think just some some warm gratitudes.

733
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I'm sure you get these emails all the time,

734
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 1: but I'd be remiss if I didn't thank you for

735
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: all your wonderful work, had a really tough time with

736
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: mental illness, and there have been a lot of nights

737
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,720
Speaker 1: that your wonderful show is staved off panic attacks or worse.

738
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: Thank you for keeping me calm and educated. Thank you

739
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,359
Speaker 1: for making me feel safe even in perilelus circumstances. Thank

740
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: you for giving me something to talk about when my

741
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 1: depression has kept me in a fog Without your massive

742
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 1: backlog up seemingly endless supply of fresh, fascinating subjects that

743
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: would surely be lost. Spent some time researching that can

744
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 1: truly appreciate just how much time and energy goes into

745
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 1: becoming familiar enough with something to explain it as succinctly

746
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: as you guys do. You are superheroes and rock stars.

747
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 1: You have truly saved me. Kindest and warmest regards, Georgia.

748
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: And here's the thing, everyone, I may have read this before,

749
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 1: but let's leave it in there, because if I did

750
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 1: read this before and forgot it, it will have been

751
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 1: within the last six or seven weeks, and it will

752
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: be a very funny ending to the memory episode either way.

753
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: The listener mails, so nice, you read it twice. Yeah,

754
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:49,399
Speaker 1: that's appropriate. Uh, well, thanks a lot Georgia two times over.

755
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:52,799
Speaker 1: Maybe thank you Chuck for that great ending. If you

756
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with this, you can go

757
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:56,319
Speaker 1: on to stuff you Should Know dot com, check out

758
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 1: our social links, and you can also send us an

759
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: email to podcasts at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff

760
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of i Heeart Radio's

761
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,399
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

762
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

763
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H