Russian psychologist Alexander Luria documented the famous
case of mnemonist Solomon Shereshevsky, who was quite different from the first
documented hyperthymestic known as AJ (real name Jill Price) in that
Shereshevsky could memorize virtually unlimited amounts of information deliberately,
while AJ could not – she could only remember autobiographical information (and
events she had personally seen on the news or read about). In fact, she was not
very good at memorizing anything at all, according to the study published in
Neurocase. Hyperthymestic individuals
appear to have poorer than average memory for arbitrary information. Another
striking parallel drawn between the two cases was that Shereshevsky exemplified
an interesting case of synesthesia and
it has been suggested that superior autobiographical memory is intimately tied
to time-space synaesthesia.
Hyperthymestic abilities can have a detrimental effect. The
constant, irrepressible stream of memories has caused significant disruption to
AJ's life. She described her recollection as "non-stop, uncontrollable and
totally exhausting" and as "a burden". AJ is prone to getting
lost in remembering. This can make it difficult to attend to the present or
future, as she is permanently living in the past. Others who have hyperthymesia
do not display any of these traits, however.
AJ displays considerable difficulty in memorizing
allocentric information. "Her autobiographical memory, while incredible,
is also selective and even ordinary in some respects," – McGaugh. This
was demonstrated by AJ's poor performance on standardised memory tests. At
school, AJ was an average student, unable to apply her exceptional memory to
her studies.
Deficits in executive functioning and anomalous
lateralisation were also identified in AJ. These cognitive deficiencies are
characteristic of frontostriatal disorders.
Even those with a high level of hyperthymesia do not
remember exactly everything in their lives or have "perfect memory".
Studies have shown that it is a selective ability, as shown by AJ's case, and
they can have comparative difficulty with rote memorization and therefore
cannot apply their ability to school and work…
It has been proposed that the initial encoding of events by
such people includes semantic processing, and therefore semantic cues are used
in retrieval. Once cued, the memory is retrieved as episodic and follows a
pattern similar to that of a spreading activation model. This is particularly
evident in AJ's case. She describes how one memory triggers another, which in
turn triggers another and how she is powerless to stop it: "It's like a
split screen; I'll be talking to someone and seeing something else."[1]
This theory serves to explain why hyperthymestics have both a sense of
'knowing' (semantic memory) and 'remembering' (episodic memory) during
recollection.
One writer claimed hyperthymesia may be a result of
reviewing memories constantly to an obsessive-compulsive degree. However AJ has completely dismissed this
article as "a load of crap" and others with hyperthymesia claim to
never revisit uneventful memories. Other findings have shown that the
tendencies to absorb new information and fantasize are personality traits that
are higher in hyperthymestics than the rest of the population. These traits:
absorption and fantasizing also correlated with one of the tests that measures
superior autobiographical memory within the hyperthymestic sample.
An MRI study conducted on AJ provides a plausible argument
as to the neurological foundation of her superior memory. Both the temporal lobe and the caudate nucleus
were found to be enlarged. The hippocampus, located in the medial temporal
lobe, is involved in the encoding of declarative memory (memory for facts and
events), while the temporal cortex is involved in the storage of such memory. The caudate nucleus is primarily associated
with procedural memory, in particular habit formation, and is, therefore,
intrinsically linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Parker and colleagues speculated
that a defective frontostriatal circuit could be responsible for the observed
executive function deficits in hyperthymesia. This circuit plays a crucial role
in neurodevelopmental disorders. Given the parallels in some aspects of
behavior, AJ's hyperthymestic abilities possibly stem from atypical
neurodevelopment. Scientists now need to ascertain if and how these brain areas
are connected to establish a coherent neurological model for superior
autobiographical memory.
As of April 2016, six cases of hyperthymesia have been confirmed
in peer-reviewed articles, first being that of "AJ" (real name Jill
Price) in 2006. More cases have been identified that are yet to be published. AJ's
case was originally reported by researchers from the University of California,
Irvine, Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill, and James McGaugh, and is credited as
being the first case of hyperthymesia. AJ can apparently recall every day of
her life from when she was 14 years old: "Starting on February 5th, 1980,
I remember everything. That was a Tuesday."
In March 2009, AJ was interviewed for an article in Wired
magazine by Gary Marcus, a cognitive psychologist at New York University. Price's brain had been subject to a brain scan
and the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex had been reportedly normal. Marcus
claimed, however, that her brain resembled "those of people with
obsessive-compulsive disorder" and suggested that her remarkable memory
might be "the byproduct of obsession", claiming also that "the
memory woman clings tightly to her past". Price has since reacted angrily
to such claims and McGaugh has also expressed skepticism about this
explanation. Price gave her first
interview in over a year for the UK's Channel 4 documentary The Boy Who Can't
Forget, and provided an insight into just how difficult life can be for people
who have this ability.
Parker ES, Cahill L, McGaugh JL. A case of unusual
autobiographical remembering. Neurocase. 2006 Feb;12(1):35-49.
Abstract
This report describes AJ, a woman whose remembering
dominates her life. Her memory is "nonstop, uncontrollable, and
automatic." AJ spends an excessive amount of time recalling her personal
past with considerable accuracy and reliability. If given a date, she can tell
you what she was doing and what day of the week it fell on. She differs from
other cases of superior memory who use practiced mnemonics to remember vast
amounts of personally irrelevant information. We propose the name
hyperthymestic syndrome, from the Greek word thymesis meaning remembering, and
that AJ is the first reported case.
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