![]() But the memory experts are relying on altogether different capacities. Eidetic imagery itself does seem, in obvious ways, photographic it does sound like the young child, quoted above, is inspecting a photo. Contrary to popular belief, memory experts people with so-called "photographic memory" do not have eidetic imagery. In any case, there is no reason to believe that this type of imagery is especially useful. The reason for this age-related decline is not obvious, but plausibly may derive from the fact that children rely more on imagery in their thinking, perhaps because their verbal and conceptual memory systems are not yet fully developed (e.g., Kosslyn, 1980, 1984). Adults with eidetic imagery certainly exist, but they seem to be fewer than children with this capacity. (It is difficult to find people with eidetic imagery in order to study them!) Researchers estimate that only 5 percent of all children are capable of some degree of eidetic imagery the extraordinary clarity of imagery evident in the case just quoted is probably rarer still. This sort of imagery is quite rare, and this is part of the reason we know relatively little about it. There are some leaves in the upper left-hand corner where the tree is (Haber, 1969, p. She's got blonde hair and a red hair band. And I can see the girl with a green dress. One on the right has green leaves, red flower on bottom with yellow on top. There's about three stems but you can see two pairs of flowers. I see the cat with stripes around its tail.Įxperimenter: Can you count those stripes?Įxperimenter: You're counting what? Black, white, or both?Ĭhild: And I can see the flowers on the bottom. Here is part of that description the child was at this point staring at a blank easel:Įxperimenter: Do you see something there?Ĭhild: I see a tree, gray tree with three limbs. ![]() The ten-year-old child in this study plainly had eidetic imagery he had been shown a picture from Alice in Wonderland (Panel A) for thirty seconds, and, after the picture was taken away, was asked to describe what he saw. ![]() This is imagery characterized by a truly photographic vividness, and can be exemplified by the following bit of dialog. However, this capacity for ordinary visualizing pales alongside of the extraordinarily clear and detailed imagery that psychologists call eidetic imagery. Exploring Contemporary Psychology: Eidetic ImageryĬhapter 8 describes the human capacity for visual imagery a capacity for creating quasi-perceptual representations that can be used in support of memory and problem-solving.
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