Severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) in healthy adults (2015)
sciencedirect.com
sciencedirect.com
> For example, when given randomly selected dates or event cues from their past, HSAM individuals can effortlessly recall many details of what happened, even if trivial (e.g., what they had for dinner) without the use of mnemonic aids. They are neither savants nor calendar counters (although they possess extensive calendar knowledge from their own lifespan) and they are distinct from other types of superior memorizers who possess vast learning and retention of meaningless information
This is the opposite group from the study, that is the group that has superior autobiographic memory. I find this incredible because I’d have to work hard to remember what I had for dinner 3 days. I’d normally do it by unspooling my memory to identify what the day was about to try to find some context. This only works up to a couple of days. Maybe a week. But there’s no way I’ll remember anything from 2 weeks or more in the past. Anyway, I thought this was amazing.
This is ALSO why you don’t ever talk to police. You talk to lawyers. If a cop were to ask you the same “where were you at” question, it’s probably better to not answer at all.
Otherwise that kind of question is ridiculous.
There is a whole set of behavioural patterns I exhibit that all seem to tie into this. For example I have no sense for time on the scale of weeks or longer.
On the other hand I seem to remember "narrative background" well. E.g. What someone likes or doesn't like, where they're from etc. I also seem much better than others in remembering whether a topic already came up or not.
In terms of MBTI/Jungian Functions: I seem very much lead Ni.
It's an odd experience having him talk in detail about a fairly normal day 11 years ago when he was two, including what we had for dinner. I can't remember what we had for dinner the day before yesterday.
This is a mnemonic device though. The person is the device. I see them (or think about, talk to them, etc) and those memories come back kind of like a stream of things related to them.
The study seems to call out ability to accurately recite one’s life story, vividly recalling subsets of childhood experiences in details, not knowing they had mac n cheez last Tuesday.
I grew up rural and was way less distracted by trendy and/or random people all around energy. I can clearly recite events and back it up with pictures my camera obsessed father took through the 80-90s. My autobiographical awareness seems intact.
Mainstream life then and now comes along with pressure to defer expressing ourselves and serve “higher purpose.” It’s not so shocking people do so and then remember nothing; there’s probably not that much to recall if one’s path was constrained to “set aside personal exploration to serve by getting busy work job, do job all week, sit on couch parasocially recharging through others emotional performances on TV.”
That’s a pretty fractal cognitive existence. That’s why I am not a fan of lifelong “career” culture. Adam Smith wrote years ago extreme division of labor would make humans incurious and stupider than animals; current political trends seem to back up the idea as everyone clings to keeping their tribal bubble intact rather than explore new models.
Don’t smash my cognitive fractal, bro!
I'm still working every day writing C++/CUDA/VHDL code, so I suppose I'm a healthy adult.
If I'm doing my math right: if they applied the Bonferroni or Sidak corrections to the fMRI results, then only one of those comparisons would still be significant.
Memories of unexpectedly getting rewards are quite salient, of course, because those train you to get more rewards.
Now that I've layed of the drugs and reduced my alcoholism to socially normal levels my memory is a lot better.
"The SDAM cases reported here have a lifetime of practice in compensating for their lack of first-person, autonoetic connection to their own past with non-episodic processes (supported by, for example, rehearsing events and reviewing photographs)"
They tested this by asking participants to recall and describe past events in as much detail as they could, then scored the transcribed recollections based on whether they were internal experiences (things they could sense, emotions they felt, etc) or external ('semantic facts (factual information or extended events that did not require recollection of a specific time and place), autobiographical events tangential or unrelated to the main event, repetitions, or other metacognitive statements (“I can׳t remember”) or editorializing (“It was the best of times”).') They also scored the recollections on how detailed they were.
So, as a somewhat speculative example, presumably somebody with SDAM would be able to tell you that they went to the fairground with two friends, and it was sunny, and it was fun - because they have a photo with those two friends at the fairground in the sun, and one of the friends later told them it was fun. But they couldn't tell you what other bits of the fairground looked like, that it smelled of cotton candy and hot trash, what it felt like to go down the hill on the roller-coaster, how hot and thirsty they got waiting in line.
I have somewhat deficient autobiographical memory - I have zero recollection of a lot of things from my past, and for others I just have a snapshot of them, like a photo with some vague feelings attached. But I'm still capable of experiencing at least some of my memories in first person, so I wouldn't qualify as having SDAM.
I assume I have aphantasia, and I have bad episodic memory -- so to me linking the two makes sense. However, I don't remember (hah!) if the study linked above was able to establish that link as well.
My capability for creating visual scenes is great, I really enjoy books because of the vivid scenes they paint in my mind.
My visual memory of events is often literally fuzzy and in the third person(out of body, spectating myself in the scene).
I’ve often wondered if the two are connected.
That being said, I only have visual aphantasia, so it may be that remembering these peoples' voices or what places smelled and sounded like may be helping those memories.
I dated someone without aphantasia who was amazed at my childhood recall compared to her own. It turned out she later discovered she had SDAM.
My hypothesis is that when people with high mental image visualization recall an event, they are re-experiencing it in a sense, and therefore reinforcing its details (or details as remembered, at least!). A person with aphantasia recalling that event does not re-experience it in a way that triggers this feedback loop, not as efficiently or completely at least.
I have very detailed memory about facts, places that I've been and seen, including spatial models; but how many times I've visited a place, who I was with on which trip, which events occurred on which visit, these details quickly become obscured and lost.
Yes, I am actually pretty good at other brain stuff. Software and design and such. Good at concentration.
And there's that "absent minded professor" archetype to consider.
On the third hand, working outside in this heat can bake the brains right out of your head.
Low stress, mental load low and mostly oriented towards people, and good diet and exercise and I’ll be able to remember almost every moment and recall and integrate it into a coherent narrative quite easily.
Mental load high and focused on abstract deep concepts? Higher anxiety? Less exercise and not as good nutrition?
Where am I, and who are you?
Yea it's called being a man. Biologically speaking men statistically have far fewer connections between the two halves of their brain. Your wife basically has a gigabit link between her two halves while you're on 56k, which contributes to the intensity of her integrated story-telling experience. On one hand this often gives women better recall, but it also generally enables men to ignore intense experiences better (i.e. easier to block out the cross-chatter) and soldier forward.
> Yes, I am actually pretty good at other brain stuff.
The results establish that male brains are optimized for intrahemispheric and female brains for interhemispheric communication. -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896179/
And no need to ask me the name of my best friends/girl friends etc during my teenagehood -earlier, just blank.
I can remember old Win32 C APIs and details like DDX that I haven't used in 20 years, but I frequently make gaffes with my wife, not remembering things that are important to her.
I can remember the paper, pages and formatting of old Sam's and Wrox technical manuals, I can visually recall the exact shade of blue of the old DOS Borland C compiler, and the look and feeling of the pages in favorite books I read as a teenager.
But my wedding is just a series of fragmented images all mixed up with outher things.
I remember the night my wife and I met only in "narrative form".
She, on the other hand, can remember events like that in crystal detail, she can describe everyone that was there, what they were wearing, etc...
I read this study with a sense of comfort, nice to know it's not just me.
Based on some of the comments here, I think it would be interesting to see if this sort of thing is a trend with different sexes.
“Cause you don’t care!”
I've had a lot of positive experiences but I have no vivid recollection of anything except the few dozen most negative experiences of my life.
I don’t remember appointments or due dates; I tend to just work on a project till it’s done. I start at the beginning, keep going till I get to the end, then, stop. People ask me for time estimates on how long programming tasks will take and honestly it’s kind of hilarious that they expect any kind of accurate answer considering that without writing down the dates I worked on it I wouldn’t have any idea if my estimate was accurate even after doing the work. So what basis do I have to even guess?
But I remember the wind in my hair and the color of the sea from when I sailed a boat on the ocean by myself once decades ago. I just sort of live in an endless perpetual now with no distinct future or past.
I don’t know where that puts me in this spectrum.
It's just not there. Many people around me have no trouble remembering like their 3 years old, don't know if it counts.
There are certain elements I cannot remember from say 10 years ago or 5. I forgot the names of some of my classmates, I sometimes forget words I shouldn't. My memory is a mess.
Sometimes some folks have near photographic memories of things others don’t, other times they believe they do and their brain has filled in the gaps with what feels like extremely vivid detail - but when cross checked against evidence or others, it becomes clear those memories could not possibly be true.
Attention is like a flashlight in a dark room full of furniture. One of those focusable flaslights that you can twist from spot to flood.
When the flashlight is spot you illuminate that chair brightly. Every detail in high contrast. But you don't see the couch or the coffeetable.
When the flashlight is flood you see everything in the room, but dimly.
Longterm memory is like the coffeetable. If you're focussed on the couch then you aren't gonna see the coffeetable.
Women seem to prefer the flood. Men the spot.
I'm a man who's also ambidextrous and ADHD'd. I don't file, I collect and search.
However I don't think I'm like these people. I don't take notes or review photos. I just accept that I'm going to make people unhappy that I don't remember events and people very well.
I assumed 3rd person visualization after the fact is reinterpreting the original memory and more subject to corruption/influence.
Aphantasia, inner monologues, episodic memory - people have started discussing their internal thought and capabilities and we are discovering we are more different than we thought.