> Have you ever noticed that you can remember perfectly well what someone said to you, but you don’t remember exactly what words she used? Or perhaps you can recall what was said but not in what language it was said.
Whatever else the article may have gotten right, this is false for me. I can, essentially, play back an audio recording of what a person just said. It doesn't work as well on languages I don't understand, but the recording is still there, it just ends up corrupted quickly because it takes a lot more to remember full audio than a few words. Also, I don't think I've ever forgotten which language something was said in, even though I can understand both French and Japanese.
That said, I have certainly noticed that other people never seem to get the words right, even when repeating things someone just said and it always bugged me that they'd change the words to things I just said a second ago.
Sounds to me like you have a form of eidetic memory. That's a pretty cool ability to have. Being a lesser human, I'm lucky if I can remember what Mom told me five seconds ago. (I'm not exaggerating.)
I've seen that before, but it's not like the memories last forever and you can just carry a tape recording of everything you've ever heard or anything like that. I've never quite been able to do the same thing visually, though I've been able to form strong visual images for a very short time when concentrating.
That said, it has always seemed weird to me that people can't remember the exact words people just said and that they always seem to change them, if only a little.
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> Have you ever noticed that you can remember perfectly well what someone said to you, but you don’t remember exactly what words she used? Or perhaps you can recall what was said but not in what language it was said.
Whatever else the article may have gotten right, this is false for me. I can, essentially, play back an audio recording of what a person just said. It doesn't work as well on languages I don't understand, but the recording is still there, it just ends up corrupted quickly because it takes a lot more to remember full audio than a few words. Also, I don't think I've ever forgotten which language something was said in, even though I can understand both French and Japanese.
That said, I have certainly noticed that other people never seem to get the words right, even when repeating things someone just said and it always bugged me that they'd change the words to things I just said a second ago.
Sounds to me like you have a form of eidetic memory. That's a pretty cool ability to have. Being a lesser human, I'm lucky if I can remember what Mom told me five seconds ago. (I'm not exaggerating.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory
I've seen that before, but it's not like the memories last forever and you can just carry a tape recording of everything you've ever heard or anything like that. I've never quite been able to do the same thing visually, though I've been able to form strong visual images for a very short time when concentrating.
That said, it has always seemed weird to me that people can't remember the exact words people just said and that they always seem to change them, if only a little.