People with HSAM are also no better than normal when it comes to remembering things like faces or phone numbers. “Memory is a distracting process, and what we pull from our brains isn’t always entirely accurate.” “Their memories are much more detailed than ours, and last for a longer period of time, but they’re still not video recordings,” says McGaugh. It’s not known yet whether these traits are the result of their superior memory, or if both are caused by another underlying factor.Īnd while people with superior memories have an uncanny talent for linking dates and events, they do occasionally make mistakes. “Some were germ-avoidant, and some had hobbies that involved intense, focused and sustained efforts,” he added. “Some subjects, like Price, focused on orderliness,” McGaugh wrote in Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference, which was updated this year to include a chapter on HSAM. Research also suggests that people with HSAM tend to have obsessive traits. “But I do tend to dwell on things longer than the average person, and when something painful does happen, like a break-up or the loss of a family member, I don’t forget those feelings.” “I consider myself lucky in that I’ve had a pretty good life, so I have a lot of happy, warm and fuzzy memories I can think back on,” he says. In getting to know other HSAM study participants, he’s learned this is a common theme. ![]() (In his everyday life, he works in marketing-in a job that has nothing to do with his special ability, he says.) He has enjoyed meeting others with HSAM and has been struck by the things they have in common.ĭeGrandis says he’s struggled from depression and anxiety, which he believes may be linked to his inability to let certain things go. “That shows you how rare it is,” says McGaugh, “that millions of people have heard about this, and yet we can only find a tiny number who fit the criteria.” The pros and cons of never forgettingĭeGrandis, being one of those people, now participates in ongoing studies by McGaugh and other memory researchers. Even in the years since, and even with plenty of additional media coverage, less than 100 people have been diagnosed with the condition. Ultimately, only about 60 of those people were identified by McGaugh and his team as actually having HSAM. After appearing on 60 Minutes, McGaugh received more than 600 emails and phone calls from people-like DeGrandis-who thought they might also have this ability. “It is non-stop, uncontrollable, and totally exhausting.”īy 2010, McGaugh and his colleagues had identified a few others with an uncanny ability to link calendar dates with events, both major news (like the Challenger explosion or Princess Diana’s death) and mundane personal details (like what they ate or what song they heard on the radio). ![]() “Whenever I see a date flash on the television (or anywhere else for that matter) I automatically go back to that day and remember where I was, what I was doing, what day it fell on and on and on and on and on,” she had written in an email to McGaugh. Price, who would later become the first person to be diagnosed with HSAM, had complained that her extraordinary memory was a burden.
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