Some investigators, most notably Haber (1979), hold that it is a real (albeit elusive), distinct, and sui generis psychological phenomenon, whose mechanisms and psychological functions (if any) may well turn out to be quite different from those of ordinary memory or imagination imagery. In fact, there is no scientific consensus regarding the nature, the proper definition, or even the very existence of eidetic imagery, even in children (see the commentaries published with Haber, 1979). ![]() (These differences of opinion may, at least partly, arise from different assumptions about the meaning of the ambiguous and contested term “eidetic”.) Other investigators, however, claim to have found evidence of eidetic ability in adults, particularly ones from “primitive” cultures (Jaensch, 1930 Doob, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1972 Feldman, 1968), and Ahsen (1965, 1977) apparently holds that most or all of us have at least the potential to recall eidetic images virtually at will. Furthermore, the eidetic images are said to persist only for a maximum of about four minutes after the visual stimulus of which they are a memory has been removed from sight (Haber & Haber, 1964). (However, eidetikers, as they are sometimes called, are generally reported as having a fair degree of voluntary control over their eidetic images, and rarely if ever seem to mistake them for objective realities.) According to Haber (1979), eidetic ability is found almost exclusively amongst young children, and is fairly rare even amongst them, occurring only in about 2% to 15% of American under-twelves. Thus the experience of eidetic imagery is supposedly much more akin to seeing a real, external object or scene, than is ordinary imagery experience. On the other hand, the rare, poorly understood, and controversial phenomenon known as eidetic imagery apparently resembles ordinary mental imagery in intentionality, but is said to be phenomenologically distinct in point of its great vividness, detail, and stability, and because it is “externally projected,” experienced as “out there” rather than “in the head”. Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy says: ![]() After all, a perfect memory is what is usually implied by the commonly used phrase “photographic memory.” As it turns out, however, the accuracy of many eidetic images is far from perfect. You might expect that an individual who claims to still see a picture after it has been removed would be able to have a perfect memory of the original picture. ![]() Furthermore, once gone from view, rarely can an eidetic image ever be retrieved. Unlike common visual images created from memory, most eidetic images last between about half a minute to several minutes only, and it is possible to voluntarily destroy an eidetic image forever by the simple act of blinking intentionally. Also, it is not possible to control which parts of an eidetic image fade and which remain visible. ![]() Second, a common visual image that we can all create from memory (such as an image of a bedroom) does not have the characteristics of most eidetic images, which almost always fade away involuntarily and part by part. (For example, a flash camera can produce afterimages: the flash is bright white, but the afterimage is a black dot, and the dot moves around every time you move your eyes.) In contrast, a true eidetic image doesnt move as you move your eyes, and it is in the same color as the original picture. First, an eidetic image is not simply a long afterimage, since afterimages move around when you move your eyes and are usually a different color than the original image. Eidetic imagery is not exactly the same as photographic memory, which doesn’t exist.Īn article in Scientific American describes eidetic images:Įidetic images differ from other forms of visual imagery in several important ways. If it exists, it’s almost exclusively found in children. Eidetic Memory is a poorly understood concept that may not even exist.
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