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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

#91

Post by ghufran_syed »

zackmorris wrote: post #20

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…

spacex is hiring...

https://www.spacex.com/careers/jobs?discipline=engineering+-...

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

#92

Post by TalEs »

sandspar wrote: post #87
petesergeant wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For me, I can't remember that I have an appointment tomorrow I have seen this cited a few times as evidence of ADHD, and without any comment at all on your own situation (a stranger, who I don't know, on the internet), isn't this in particular mostly true of everyone? I have a calendar and a todo-list app specifically for this reason.

ADHD is the latest in a very long line of "vaguely applies to everyone" diagnoses. The history of psychology is full of them. Asperger's was in vogue a few years ago, chronic fatigue syndrome is for people who like scary diagnoses, irritable bowel is one with a reputational devil may care, codependency is a bit antique, long COVID is topical. Any sufficiently motivated person can diagnose themselves with these. And b…

This is why self-diagnosis isn't an actual standard, but also your statement is that of ignorance. ADHD can be seen more of a chronic condition, people do forget minor details once in a while, but when you start to have that happen almost daily, even after a few minutes or hours, that is more akin to ADHD. Another analogy is, everyone has to urinate, but when you have to urinate every 5 mins, that is a problem, that is ADHD. ADHD affect the ability to perform executive functions first, which is it's main trait, it also come with it's own set of other problems like memory, so writing off ADHD as a trend, is reductive, imo. It's not something actual sufferers label themselves to feel special, it's more like society labels them to call them lazy or "special".

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

#93

Post by flashgordon »

zackmorris wrote: post #20

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…

You know I was watching Amadeus about 15 years ago. It was the first time I had even heard about Salieri. In one of the first scenes an aged Salieri fails at a suicide attempt. Enraged and out of his mind he yells past his wardens (I think at a mental asylum) - "I am Antonio Salieri - the patron saint of mediocrity".

WTF I thought to myself. The "second best" musician was bemoaning his mediocrity. What ever hope would someone like me ever have.

It's been a long time since then. Fuck it if I was not going to have an opportunity to work on interesting things and am relegated to building stupid crud apis in my 40 hours! At least il make money so my family benefits while i get to build compilers, game engines, deep learning frameworks from first principles in my spare time (and I have a lot of it once I realized my work is not me).

Nobody can take that away from me. Nobody can take that away from you!

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

#94

Post by quintushoratius »

mateo1 wrote: post #60
PKop wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea the choice of questions to ask her was ridiculous. I mean start there maybe, and escalate to something more interesting, or go further back in time etc. Such a lack of imagination. It's almost like everyone wanted to believe and didn't want to push the limits to break their impression of it being some super power.

Also with the other woman they used as an example, the only thing she did is say that X date was a Thrursday or something, which might simply be a trick and not a memory recall.

Marilu Henner is somewhat known as a prodigy. She's a member of Mensa, things like that. The clip shown in the video was chosen poorly because it doesn't really convey her abilities.

I just checked her Wikipedia page, and besides a passing mention of her HSAM its pretty spare. I seem to remember (ba-dum-tiss) that it used to be mote comprehensive.

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

#95

Post by Tarq0n »

renhanxue wrote: post #52

Video game personality Tim Rogers supposedly has HSAM, and described it like this: > This is a condition which requires me to remember everything that ever happens within my earshot and eyeshot. No: I describe it impressively: it turns life into noise, and it is useless. Please listen to my noise now, because if you do not, who will? I have lost the ability to hear it. He wrote a semi-fictional essay about it which I…

This is also a prominent point in his review of Boku no Natsuyasumi. He's a fascinating person.

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

#96

Post by polytely »

schoen wrote: post #33

The reverse of this is "severely deficient autobiographical memory", which has been in the news recently as well (and I think discussed on HN too). I think it's interesting that I consider myself to have a good memory but it is by far best at verbal associations (e.g. facts about a specific topic, object, word, or concept). The autobiographical part feels quite weak for me: I often find it hard to remember experience…

Great write-up, This matches my experience exactly, but I've never been able to put it into words this well.

The different ways in which people brains work differently from each other is so interesting to me. feels like there is a set of stable configuration you can run in there to get to a functional brain.

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

#97

Post by MadcapJake »

zackmorris wrote: post #20

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…

This is me as well! In college, I once met my professor for lunch and I knew he had a matching taste in music and I listened to a lot of music and was excited to meet someone with an eclectic taste like me. He promptly asked me my favorite bands and I couldn't think of a single one! It's become a recurring nightmare of mine and something I still struggle with today: I can't just reach in and grab a memory, it has to be associated with something that triggers it to be pulled back up. I don't have any kind of list functionality and that extends to todo lists, chore lists, family/friend lists. Even when I finally find something that ties into what needs to be listed, I lose track of where i am in the list before i can get even 3 items listed...but start talking about some interesting history, philosophy, psychology, science and I will recall vast sums of knowledge. My current job in project management is a perfect fit for me because i mostly respond/react to changing business priorities and my recall of history is super useful in that context. When I have to start in a new area or new feature, I rely on my stakeholders to get me lists of pain points and I can then apply my skillset to mold it into a refined vision for development.

Also, big tip: don't be afraid to say you need someone to remind you of things; as soon as someone broaches the topic, my mind goes to work and my recall is activated. You'd be surprised how often others are just waiting for that overview again to get back up to speed.

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

#98

Post by 1letterunixname »

jml7c5 wrote: post #84
1letterunixname wrote: post #75

An ex-gf of mine was borderline HSAM. It was ridiculous. She was essentially a walking tape recorder. TIL there's a specific term for it.

Do you have any examples? You should tell her to get in touch with researchers. Even if she doesn't quite have HSAM, they'd probably be interested. In fact, they might be even more interested to see someone who lives in the gap between HSAM and not-HSAM.

We would "argue" about what was said anywhere from weeks to months ago, and she would replay the entire conversation verbatim.

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

#99

Post by robertlagrant »

schoen wrote: post #83
robertlagrant wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like I experience past events more as modifications to my world view rather than a log of moments That's interesting - I'm similar. I think of it in terms of remembering conclusions, rather than the reasons for the conclusions. Which can make it difficult to explain my reasoning sometimes - I tend to only remember the axioms/assumptions, and the conclusions, and have to try and recreate the intermediate step…

Heh, in deduction systems there is something called proof erasure, I believe asserting that any two proofs of the same proposition are equal. Maybe your mind's inference is working on something like a proof erasure principle? :-)

Well, that sounds good! I was previously riding high on coming out of Mayers-Briggs with a personality type that sounds like some sort of all-knowing robot god. Proof erasure principle sounds like an excellent followup (-:

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

#100

Post by zackmorris »

lr4444lr wrote: post #58
zackmorris wrote: post #20

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…

What makes you say that autistic people have weak rote but strong associative memory? One common feature of high functioning autistics is an obsession with the memorization of minutiae (on some topic of intense interest) without at all understanding context. For example, a former classics professor I knew told us about a relative of his who memorized the entire Persian king list for dozens of dynasties long. He could…

Good question. I might be more like 80/20 ADHD/autistic and have mostly learned about the (monotropism?) symptoms from @nd_psych on TikTok. I spend an inordinate amount of time simulating other people's minds trying to understand how they arrive at conclusions that don't make sense to me, in pathological demand avoidance (PDA), and in autistic burnout due to masking. I don't seem to have the stereotypical pedantic/critiquing/savant or memorization skills seen in portrayals like Rain Man or The Accountant.

My lived reality is just a crushing, unending, series of external asks that have all but obliterated my sense of self and autonomy. From the moment I wake up until I go to bed, I'm just running, performatively matching the constraints required of me to tread water. I used to be very self-driven, but after so many decades of this, I don't have a strong sense of being able to take care of myself. I would have been homeless at many times in my life had it not been for the generosity of friends and family.

Where this matters for me is that I've lost too many years to stuff like politics. I've learned recently that left and right just live in different realities. No amount of mental simulation will allow me to fully understand another person's context. Because they're not even thinking about the same problems I am, they're prioritizing other things.

For example, I was raised under a largely feminist/humanist framework and identify as progressive, so empathy dominates my decision making. But imagine you're in a hostage situation, who do you want to rescue you? Someone raised under positive reinforcement (left), or tough love (right)? I think most of us want conservatives dropping in from the ceiling and getting it done.

So I've been working on expanding my mindset to accept multiple points of view and leave behind us-versus-them winners and losers thinking. Opening my mind to notions like not knowing and letting go. Seeing the power in being wrong sometimes, allowing others to help, and delegating to be part of a stronger team. It's sure hard sometimes though.

Sorry if that's more than what you were asking, but hey, I guess I'm interested in it!

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