The Automatic Memory Woman
Posted on March 17, 2006
The Orange County Register has an article about a woman with an extraordinary memory. She can recall her exact personal history and historical events when given a date. The 40-year-old woman is known as AJ to keep her real name confidential.
She wasn't exaggerating. McGaugh and fellow UCI researchers Larry Cahill and Elizabeth Parker have been studying the extraordinary case of a person who has "nonstop, uncontrollable and automatic" memory of her personal history and countless public events.The article also includes an interesting FAQ where the woman said she would not want to lose the ability: "But she doesn't want to lose this capability because she enjoys it. It's a talent that she can talk about with friends." Everyone has certain days and events they remember well but to be able to remember every single day in such rich detail is incredible.If you randomly pick a date from the past 25 years and ask her about it, she'll usually provide elaborate, verifiable details about what happened to her that day and if there were any significant news events on topics that interested her. She usually also recalls what day of the week it was and what the weather was like.
The 40-year-old woman, who was given the code name AJ to protect her privacy, is so unusual that UCI coined a name for her condition in a recent issue of the journal Neurocase: hyperthymestic syndrome.
"I have studied learning and memory for over 50 years, and I had never read of or even heard about a person who has a comparable ability to remember," McGaugh said. "However, we do not know whether she is unique or whether there may be others with comparable remembering ability who have not as yet been identified."
