Eidetic Memory and School Age

Abstract

What is eidetic memory? It is the ability “in the literal sense of the word to see again an object that has been displayed, either only immediately after viewing it, or after a long interval of time.” The place of eidetic ability among human physiological and psychological abilities is a matter of debate to this day. The principal researcher of eidetic memory, E. Jaensch, a psychology professor at Marburg University, answers this question by drawing an analogy with the color orange. Among psychological and physiological phenomena, he says, eidetic memory occupies a place similar to hues of orange, which may be more red or more yellow, but always lie somewhere in the middle between pure red and pure yellow, approaching either one or the other; in precisely the same way pure afterimages and literally visible concepts that are projected externally form the extreme boundaries betweenwhich lie eidetic images. An eidetic image is conventionally called a visual image and referred to by the letters AB; that is, the phenomenon of eidetic memory sometimes approximates sensations or perceptions and sometimes concepts.