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Hyperthymesia or hyperthymestic syndrome is a condition where the affected individual has a superior autobiographical memory. As first described in the Neurocase article "A case of unusual autobiographical remembering," the two defining characteristics of hyperthymesia are "1) the person spends an abnormally large amount of time thinking about his or her personal past, and 2) the person has an extraordinary capacity to recall specific events from their personal past" (Parker et al. 2006:47).

Individuals with hyperthymesia can recall the most trivial of events. A hyperthymestic person can be asked a date, and describe the events that occurred that day, what the weather was like, and many seemingly trivial details that most people would not be able to recall. They can often recall what day of the week the date fell on, but are not calendrical calculators as people with autism sometimes are; the recall is limited to days on a personal "mental calendar" (Parker et al. 2006:48). The mental calendar association occurs automatically and obsessively. Unlike some other individuals with superior memory, hyperthymestic individuals do not rely on practiced mnemonic strategies.

So far only one case of hyperthymesia has been confirmed. Researchers Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill, and James McGaugh have studied the condition in a woman called "AJ," whose memory they characterize as "nonstop, uncontrollable, and automatic" (2006:35). AJ became aware of her detailed memory in 1978, when she was 12, and from 1980 on she can apparently recall every day.

[edit] See also

• Eidetic memory
• Autistic Savant
• Daniel McCartney

[edit] References

• "Woman With Perfect Memory Baffles Scientists". (March 20, 2006). ABC News.
• Parker, Elizabeth, Larry Cahill, and James McGaugh (2006). "A case of unusual autobiographical remembering." Neurocase 12 (11) 35-49.
• "Woman's Long-Term Memory Astonishes Scientists". (April 20, 2006). National Public Radio. (Part 2 includes "AJ" in her own words.)

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Memory
Types of memory
Auditory memory | Autobiographical memory | Collective memory | Early memories | Echoic Memory | Eidetic memory | Episodic memory | Explicit memory  |Exosomatic memory | False memory |Flashbulb memory | Iconic memory |Institutional memory | Long term memory | Procedural memory | Prospective memory |Repressed memory |Retrospective memory | Semantic memory |Sensory memory | Short term memory |Spatial memory | State-dependent memory | Verbal memory  | Visual memory  | Tonal memory | | Working memory  |
Aspects of memory
Childhood amnesia | Cryptomnesia |Cued recall | Eye-witness testimony | Memory and emotion | Forgetting |Forgetting curve | Free recall |Levels-of-processing effect |Memory consolidation |Memory decay | Memory distrust syndrome |Memory inhibition | Memory and smell | Memory loss | Memory optimization | Memory trace | Mnemonic | Memory biases  | Tip of the tongue |Lethologica | Priming | Proactive interference | Prompting | Recency effect | Recall (learning) | Recognition (learning) | Reminiscence | Retention | Retroactive interference | Source amnesia |
Memory theory
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Mnemonics
Method of loci | Mnemonic room system | Mnemonic dominic system | Mnemonic link system |Mnemonic major system | Mnemonic peg system | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |[[]] |
Neuroanatomy of memory
Amygdala | Hippocampus | prefrontal cortex  | Neurobiology of working memory | Neurophysiology of memory | Rhinal cortex | [[]] |[[]] |
Neurochemistry of memory
Glutamatergic system  | [[]] | [[]] |[[]] | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |[[]] |
Memory in clinical settings
Alcohol amnestic disorder | Amnesia | Dissociative fugue | False memory | Hyperthymesia | Memory and aging | Memory disorders | Repressed memory | Traumatic memory |
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Prominant workers in memory|-
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Philosophy and historical views of memory
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Miscellaneous
Journals | Learning, Memory, and Cognition |Journal of Memory and Language |Memory |Memory and Cognition | [[]] | [[]] | [[]] |

This page uses content from the English-language version of Wikipedia. The original article was at Hyperthymesia. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Psychology Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.