If not terminated, the eidetic images involuntarily faded in a similar manner (4). Participants could voluntarily terminate these images by blinking or looking away. They also had a wide range of accuracy they could be highly detailed or fragmentary. The images lasted at least forty seconds and could persist for up to several minutes. There was no connection between gender and incidences of eidetic memory (6). From various studies, Haber and Haber found that it is vary rare approximately 2-15% of elementary school age children are capable of eidetic imagery.
Their descriptions were given in the present tense, as if they were still looking at the image.
When the picture was taken away, the children scanned the blank easel in order to describe the image. The subjects were exposed to a detailed picture placed on an easel for thirty seconds. Haber (1964) documented similar behavior in children with eidetic imagery. Her images would break apart instead of fading away slowly (3).Īlthough Elizabeth is an extreme case, a study done by L. Moving her eyes allowed her to scan the projected image, which remained entirely stationary. She was also able to project her images onto a blank canvas or over the top of other images. The subject of their study, a woman named "Elizabeth," was able to write out poetry in a foreign language years after seeing the original text. The most convincing and unique documentation of eidetic imagery was a case study done by Charles Stromeyer in 1970. Although some write off eidetic memory as the ability to organize vast amounts of information, others have found that this ability cannot be used to explain all the cases studied. The initially high performance level of the experts was not due to eidetic imagery they were simply able to better organize and therefore remember the information because the arrangements could be associated with pre-existing knowledge of chess (7). It was found that the performance level of an expert chess player would drop to that of a novice when the pieces were arranged in a way that would never actually occur in a game. In his study, chess players were asked to reconstruct certain arrangements of pieces on a chessboard after looking at the arrangement for a brief period of time. A study done by Degroot shows that some individuals are highly skilled at organizing information- not actually reproducing the images they see. Individuals capable of superior memory were tested and many were found not to possess eidetic imagery. In searching for the physical explanation behind eidetic imagery and its connection to my visual images, I found that there are more questions about this ability than answers- the largest question being whether or not it truly exists.Įidetic imagery has been studied for over a century (2) and many studies have been done to test its validity.
This ability has been particularly interesting to me because I am a visual person and my memories are in the form of images, but I do not have a photographic memory. People capable of eidetic memory, or eidetikers, are therefore able to recall vivid images within their mind and examine these images as one would examine a photograph. or see an image that is an exact copy of the original sensory experience" (1). Eidetic imagery has been defined as "the ability to retain an accurate, detailed visual image of a complex scene or pattern. These are the abilities associated with eidetic imagery, more commonly known as photographic memory. Imagine being able to memorize an entire sheet of Russian vocabulary, a list of math equations, or the window arrangement on a large building just by observing it for a few seconds. On Serendip Eidetic Imagery: Raising More Questions than Answers Anna Arnaudo
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