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'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

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Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#11

Post by neilv »

prng2021 wrote: post #9
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #2

I wonder if she can index on specific details, or if a linear scan is required to answer more complex queries. If she sits down to read through the periodic table, can she look up all of the properties of any element on demand?

Isn’t that what she did? They randomly picked calendar dates and asked her to explain things that happened on each day.

Is that O(n), O(1), or something else?

And is any n the total amount of information stored, distance from now, distance from start, or something else?

Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#12

Post by datameta »

prng2021 wrote: post #9
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #2

I wonder if she can index on specific details, or if a linear scan is required to answer more complex queries. If she sits down to read through the periodic table, can she look up all of the properties of any element on demand?

Isn’t that what she did? They randomly picked calendar dates and asked her to explain things that happened on each day.

If I'm not mistaken, the question here is whether they will be using episodic or semantic memory in the recall of the periodic table. Meaning - can they recall learned facts as well as lived experiences? Will they linearly remember the moments of learning about each element? What is the granularity of their recall?

Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#13

Post by datameta »

neilv wrote: post #11
prng2021 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that what she did? They randomly picked calendar dates and asked her to explain things that happened on each day.

Is that O(n), O(1), or something else? And is any n the total amount of information stored, distance from now, distance from start, or something else?

From what I understand, if they are asked about let's say April 17th 2009 they linearly scan through all the April 17ths. So there is a filtering step that ignores all other 364 days. But they also don't start from their earliest memories so how does that filtering work?

Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#14

Post by vunderba »

fbdab103 wrote: post #7

I suppose if she is ever on hard times, she can study for a month and cleanup on Jeopardy or a similar quiz show.

Humor aside, you'll find most Jeopardy contestants actually know the majority of the answers to any given question on Jeopardy (single and double), and the determining factors are more about buzzer technique, ability to perform on-stage, and shrewd wagering on daily doubles.

Sony can't really afford to "ratchet" up the difficulty either since that would result in an arms-race of trivia questions that would drastically reduce the appeal to the mainstream viewer if they saw categories like "Descendants of the Zulu Royal Family", "Musculoskeletal Radiology", "Polymer engineering", and "Civil Servants".

Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#15

Post by datameta »

unshavedyak wrote: post #5
brandall10 wrote: post #4

There was a great 60 Minutes on this nearly 15 years back, where they picked random facts from historical record and got pretty shocking immediate recall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zTkBgHNsWM

I found it interesting that she didn't remember everything. Notably in one example, she couldn't recall what she had for lunch, but did for dinner. I find it almost more weird that she can recall so many meaningless (in the grand scheme) details yet there is still a limit. Perhaps too meaningless?

I think where their attention is and therefore what gets encoded is similar to the rest of us. In one instance they were unable to recall what the interviewers were wearing after spending two hours with them. They remember their experiences visually, essentially. So if information was not actually recorded, it can't be searched for.

On a different note, I'm curious how long people with photographic memory store the info at the same fidelity. Does their perfect recollection of a landscape they looked at for a few minutes fade somewhat after a year or so?

Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#16

Post by lolinder »

prng2021 wrote: post #9
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #2

I wonder if she can index on specific details, or if a linear scan is required to answer more complex queries. If she sits down to read through the periodic table, can she look up all of the properties of any element on demand?

Isn’t that what she did? They randomly picked calendar dates and asked her to explain things that happened on each day.

That's technically different than what OP is asking about. She could have a perfect memory for dates and experiences in her life but not have indefinite perfect recall for something more fact-oriented like the periodic table.

It sounds like her fact-recalling abilities are deeply tied to memories of experiences and conversations, so she could probably intentionally structure a study session to take advantage of that, but it doesn't mean she automatically can recall everything she reads.

Edit—looks like in general people with HSAM do not have better than average memory as measured by other kinds of tests:

> So far, the studied conducted at UC Irvine suggest that individuals with HSAM have superior abilities in autobiographical memories but are no different from age- and sex-matched control participants on standard laboratory memory tests.

https://cnlm.uci.edu/hsam/

Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#17

Post by fbdab103 »

vunderba wrote: post #14
fbdab103 wrote: post #7

I suppose if she is ever on hard times, she can study for a month and cleanup on Jeopardy or a similar quiz show.

Humor aside, you'll find most Jeopardy contestants actually know the majority of the answers to any given question on Jeopardy (single and double), and the determining factors are more about buzzer technique, ability to perform on-stage, and shrewd wagering on daily doubles. Sony can't really afford to "ratchet" up the difficulty either since that would result in an arms-race of trivia questions that would drasticall…

That makes sense. The vast majority of trivia I have seen on such shows feels attainable by anyone with dedicated study.

Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#18

Post by thecoppinger »

datameta wrote: post #15
unshavedyak wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it interesting that she didn't remember everything. Notably in one example, she couldn't recall what she had for lunch, but did for dinner. I find it almost more weird that she can recall so many meaningless (in the grand scheme) details yet there is still a limit. Perhaps too meaningless?

I think where their attention is and therefore what gets encoded is similar to the rest of us. In one instance they were unable to recall what the interviewers were wearing after spending two hours with them. They remember their experiences visually, essentially. So if information was not actually recorded, it can't be searched for. On a different note, I'm curious how long people with photographic memory store the i…

I read somewhere years ago that each subsequent recall of a memory is remembering the last time you recalled it—in a sense, an entropy-like phenomenon called memory reconsolidation.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/memory-rec...

Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#19

Post by poulsbohemian »

This is fascinating, but I’m left confused at the banality. Maybe it’s just the way the article was written, but truly, who cares that she can remember what was playing on Netflix three years ago? It does cause me to wonder if brains are attuned to certain things - like in this woman’s case, is she particularly interested in celebrities and that’s why all the examples given are out of the tabloid headlines? The article left me with a lot of questions.

Re: 'Super memory': Why Emily Nash is sharing her brain with science

#20

Post by zackmorris »

I'm curious how this relates to neurodivergent/ADHD/autistic learning where someone has weak rote-memorization skills and mainly remembers things as a fractal of associations.

For me, I can't remember that I have an appointment tomorrow, but if you ask me how computers work, I'll start with explaining electron orbitals and band gaps, doping, masking, VLSI, assembly language, C, functional programming and where AI is heading from first principles.

Unfortunately instead of being some kind of superpower, it's mainly been debilitating for me, because I've spent my career writing CRUD apps in an endless series of failed startups. Because most people don't think this way, and instead see only the use-case before them as a stepping stone to another goal, usually financial. It would be easier for me to design spaceships than manage my bills, but I seem to be relegated to doing chores for the rest of my life and dying penniless.

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