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Don't you think it would be nice if you had a photographic memory? But is it actually a thing? For 10% off Squarespace: http://squarespace.com/scishowpsych Hosted by: Brit Garner ---------- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ---------- Dooblydoo thanks go to the following Patreon supporters-Kevin Bealer, Mark Terrio-Cameron, KatieMarie Magnone, Patrick Merrithew, Charles Southerland, Fatima Iqbal, Sultan Alkhulaifi, Tim Curwick, Scott Satovsky Jr, Philippe von Bergen, Bella Nash, Chris Peters, Patrick D.

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– Jag är i branschen för jag tror jag kan göra skillnad. Jag tror att en reklambyrå kan göra saker som ingen i dag tror att den kan göra. Branschen har gått på myten om sig själv och hajpat upp sig till skyarna. Men sett lite utanför: Jesus vilket luftslott.

ANNONS

Orden är David Sandströms år 2012, då relativt nybakad vd för DDB Stockholm. Vi stod under S:t Eriksbron i Stockholm och tog bilder till en intervju om hur han tänkte förändra byrån och möta framtidens kommunikationslandskap. Den ruffiga fonden skulle illustrera hans syn på sig själv som en outsider i branschen. 

Det har gått tre år sedan dess. Vad har egentligen hänt under denna tid? I dag sitter vi i kafeterian i Bonnierskrapan, ett stenkast från byråns kontor. 
– Som ledare har jag fått respekt för att saker tar längre tid än vad man tänkt. Det vi pratade om för tre år sedan har på riktigt börjat hända nu. Men jag trodde att det skulle ta sex månader, säger David Sandström anno 2016. 

Vad är det som har sinkat? 
– Om du ska göra en förändring på riktigt krävs det mer än en Powerpoint. Människor är vanedjur som jobbar på i gamla hjulspår. Att bryta ner det beteendet tar tid. Det är en sak att sitta på nyårsdagen och köpa ett Sats-kort. En helt annan sak att dyka upp där varannan dag och köra sitt pass. 

Det var alltså fyra år sedan som han fick förtroendet att bli vd över DDB, vid den tiden en byrå med närmare 150 anställda och över 300 miljoner kronor i omsättning, blott 29 år gammal. Många lyfte på ögonbrynen åt att ledningen vågade lyfta ett så obeprövat kort att ta över taktpinnen. 
– För att lyckas med det här jobbet krävs två saker: en bra gnutta hybris och naivitet. Därför var det bra att jag var 29 år. Om jag hade varit 45 och "kunnat allt" hade jag sett exakt vilka problem som skulle dyka upp. Jag hade vetat hur jobbigt det skulle bli och blivit cynisk inför uppgiften. Men jag hade tillräckligt med hybris och tänkte att det skulle bli en baggis, och naiv i meningen att jag inte hade koll på vad som kunde gå snett, säger han. 

Men många i branschen verkade inte ha samma positiva inställning till den nye vd:n. 
– Känslan när jag tog över som vd var att mamma och pappa, min flickvän och några stycken på DDB ville att jag skulle lyckas. Resten ville att det skulle gå åt skogen och att jag skulle brännas på bål, säger han och tänker tillbaka på hur han upplevde reaktionerna i kommentarsfälten efter att media skrivit om nyheten: 

– De tre första kommentarerna var i stil med "jag ger honom högst ett år". Överlag är det här inte en bransch som peppar varandra till tusen. Det är lite synd att man skapar framgång genom att trycka ner andra. Det påminner om hantverkarbranschen. 

Hur menar du då? 
– Om du renoverar ditt kök och tar in en annan hantverkare kommer det första den säger vara "oj oj, har du gjort på det här sättet? Det var inte bra". Jag får samma känsla i reklambranschen. Vi uppmuntrar inte varandra att göra fantastiska saker. 



David Sandströms bakgrund är långt ifrån typisk i reklamsammanhang. Hans pappa är amerikan och hans mamma kommer från Tyskland. Familjen bosatte sig i förorten Dalen i södra Stockholm men på grund av mammans ursprung valde David att gå i Tyska skolan på Östermalm. Där gick han ut med högsta betyg i alla ämnen. 
– Men visste inte vad jag skulle göra. Min farsa, som är en jävligt enkelspårig man, sa "gör det som är bäst". Så jag googlade på den bästa skolan i Stockholm och där stod det Handelshögskolan. Så jag sökte mig dit. 

Till en början läste David Sandström finans som inriktning och testade att arbeta på den mytomspunna investmentbanken Goldman Sachs i London. Men livet bland kotlettfrillorna kändes aldrig riktigt hundra. Därför sökte han sig efter två år till professor Micael Dahléns specialutformade masterprogram inom marknadsföring. Där gick han ut som kursetta och tog anställning på mediebyrån Carats analysavdelning. Efter ett drygt år värvades han över till DDB som planner, och steg sedan snabbt i graderna. Först som informell ledare och sedan formell. 
– Det poppar upp allt fler unga ledare i dag. Tidigare var ledarskap attribuerat med att vara gammal och oftast att vara en gubbe. Nu ser vi en helt annan struktur och du behöver inte ens ha en titel för att vara ledare. Det är kul. 

Ändå är det fortfarande ovanligt att en så ung person blir vd över en så stor verksamhet. 
– Men ska du förändra branschen på riktigt ska du inte ha för mycket erfarenhet. Jag tror det i mångt och mycket är en belastning, menar David Sandström. 

Är inte erfarenhet vara av godo? 
– Jo, men en verksamhet måste till slut ställa sig frågan: vad placerar vi i första rummet? Det manifesteras i vem som blir vd. Jag omger mig självklart av en massa erfarna och kloka personer, men det fanns ett symbolvärde i tillsättningen eftersom den pekade ut riktningen framåt. 

Hur gjorde du för att få respekt? 
– Det finns flera olika vägar dit. En väg är att vara åldermannen eller ålderkvinnan på ett ställe, vilket gör att folk litar på dig bara i kraft av det. En annan väg är att ha en tydlig bild och övertygelse om vad som behöver göras. En tredje är hantverket, alltså att vara bra på det du gör. Jag hade inte erfarenheten, men jag hade bevisat vad jag kan göra och vad jag tror på. Partnergruppen köpte in på det. 

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Every now and then, you see news reports of people with incredible memories, able to recall every single thing from their life at a moment's notice. Initially, it may sound like an incredibly useful ability. No more searching for your car keys that you had in your hand minutes ago, no more desperately stalling for time as you flounder to remember the name of the casual acquaintance who's just said hello to you, no more taking notes at all. Why would you need to? It's no wonder it pops up often in pop culture.

Indeed, there are many people who can demonstrate incredible memory prowess, having trained their memories to be as efficient and thorough as possible via useful and approved techniques, in order to compete in memory sports, which are an actual thing. Clearly, for some people at least, there is potential to greatly boost the brain's ability to store and recall information to well above average levels. Ben Carson even claimed to be able to induce this with a simple bit of surgery (which is utterly wrong)

What's far more rare are reports of people who do this without even trying, without having to learn and train with an endless series of mnemonics and so on. Like one of Marvel's mutants discovering a hitherto unexpected super power, some people seem to be born with seemingly-infallible memories. There are a number of terms that are used to describe such abilities. Photographic memory, eidetic memory, Hyperthymesia, Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, perfect recall, there are a number of labels to choose from when discussing formidable memory prowess.

These labels, while often used interchangeably, regularly do have different meanings. Eidetic memory refers to the ability to hold detailed memories in your head as if they were an image. Photographic memory refers to the ability to recall any memory and experience in photographic detail, to the point where you could "read" the footnotes in a book you were holding 18 years before. Eidetic memory is believed to occur in a small number of children, while there's no clear evidence that photographic memory even truly exists.

Hyperthymesia or Highly Superior Autobiographical memory describes people with a formidable ability to accurately recall past experiences and the associated details. When something happened, who was there, what they were wearing, and so on. Such people, while vanishingly rare, do seem to exist, and present an opportunity to considerably expand our understanding of how our brains process memories. However, the idea that someone has a "flawless" memory, is able to remember everything from any aspect of their lives in great and accurate detail, is far from confirmed by available scientific evidence.

Part of this is due to the miniscule number of people who end up demonstrating such natural memory prowess. It's hard to study an ability if you can't get access to anyone who has it. Not that there hasn't been some interesting findings based on the few super-memories we have. For instance, one scanning study on such a person revealed signs of an abnormally large amygdala which was better connected to the hippocampus. The amygdala is known to have a prominent role in the processing of the emotional element of memories, and emotional memories are easier to recall. It's easy to see how this could lead to a much-improved memory system.

But that's just one person in one study. It could, however unlikely it seems given the context, be a coincidence. We'd need to run similar scans on other people with similar memory capabilities, but these are few and far between.

There's also the problem of verifying someone's memory in terms of accuracy. If you ask them to remember the dates of major events, then yes, you can easily determine the accuracy of that. But many people can remember the dates of significant events (especially for ones like "9/11"). It's when you ask more personal life events that things get tricky. If someone describes the scene at their 7 th birthday and what presents they got, how you are supposed to confirm if they're remembering it correctly? It's impossible unless you have video footage of the event itself, and it's rare for scientists to go around publicly filming children they don't know. Such behaviour is frowned upon.

This may seem like needless pedantry; why would anyone lie about such a thing? Except it's not that they lie, it's that they could be remembering it wrongly and not realise they're doing it. Unlike computer memory, human memory is highly malleable. The questions we're asked, the number of times we've spoken about it, the company we're in, how much we've had to drink, all of these can alter and adjust our memories, to an often alarming degree.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

People's ability to accurately remember things is obviously very important for the legal system. Lucky everyone's memory is 100% reliable then... *cough* Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

Sadly, what research there is suggests that those people with incredible memories are just as susceptible to forming "false memories" as anyone else. What good is being able to remember vast amounts of information if you can't be sure any of it is accurate? The brain has been dealing with "Fake news" far longer than Google has.

False memories seem to arise when the brain has a few crumbs of information and extrapolates a memory from them. Sometimes this can be a pathological problem. But occasionally you can catch hints of it from people with powerful memories. For instance, someone claiming they have vivid memories from when they were 12 days old. The ability to remember this far back would be impressive enough, but when you also consider the fact the visual system is still undeveloped at that age, meaning babies can't even distinguish between colours until about 4 months old, it's damn near miraculous.

Maybe there is someone with a "perfect" memory out there. But if there is, we haven't found them yet. And perhaps we should hope there isn't. Those with incredible, innate memory prowess describe it as a mixed blessing at best. The increased demand on your thinking capacity, the constant dwelling in the past, the inability to escape painful or damaging experiences? If someone offered you all that, would you accept? Forget about it!
Dean Burnett would like to remind everyone that more in-depth discussion about this can be found in his debut book The Idiot Brain, currently Audible's most popular nonfiction audiobook. Available in the and many other countries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The perfect memory: does it even exist? | Dean Burnett

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Every now and then, you see news reports of people with incredible memories, able to recall every single thing from their life at a moment's notice. Initially, it may sound like an incredibly useful ability.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Every now and then, you see news reports of people with incredible memories, able to recall every single thing from their life at a moment's notice. Initially, it may sound like an incredibly useful ability. No more searching for your car keys that you had in your hand minutes ago, no more desperately stalling for time as you flounder to remember the name of the casual acquaintance who's just said hello to you, no more taking notes at all. Why would you need to? It's no wonder it pops up often in pop culture.

Indeed, there are many people who can demonstrate incredible memory prowess, having trained their memories to be as efficient and thorough as possible via useful and approved techniques, in order to compete in memory sports, which are an actual thing. Clearly, for some people at least, there is potential to greatly boost the brain's ability to store and recall information to well above average levels. Ben Carson even claimed to be able to induce this with a simple bit of surgery (which is utterly wrong)

What's far more rare are reports of people who do this without even trying, without having to learn and train with an endless series of mnemonics and so on. Like one of Marvel's mutants discovering a hitherto unexpected super power, some people seem to be born with seemingly-infallible memories. There are a number of terms that are used to describe such abilities. Photographic memory, eidetic memory, Hyperthymesia, Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, perfect recall, there are a number of labels to choose from when discussing formidable memory prowess.

These labels, while often used interchangeably, regularly do have different meanings. Eidetic memory refers to the ability to hold detailed memories in your head as if they were an image. Photographic memory refers to the ability to recall any memory and experience in photographic detail, to the point where you could "read" the footnotes in a book you were holding 18 years before. Eidetic memory is believed to occur in a small number of children, while there's no clear evidence that photographic memory even truly exists.

Hyperthymesia or Highly Superior Autobiographical memory describes people with a formidable ability to accurately recall past experiences and the associated details. When something happened, who was there, what they were wearing, and so on. Such people, while vanishingly rare, do seem to exist, and present an opportunity to considerably expand our understanding of how our brains process memories. However, the idea that someone has a "flawless" memory, is able to remember everything from any aspect of their lives in great and accurate detail, is far from confirmed by available scientific evidence.

Part of this is due to the miniscule number of people who end up demonstrating such natural memory prowess. It's hard to study an ability if you can't get access to anyone who has it. Not that there hasn't been some interesting findings based on the few super-memories we have. For instance, one scanning study on such a person revealed signs of an abnormally large amygdala which was better connected to the hippocampus. The amygdala is known to have a prominent role in the processing of the emotional element of memories, and emotional memories are easier to recall. It's easy to see how this could lead to a much-improved memory system.

But that's just one person in one study. It could, however unlikely it seems given the context, be a coincidence. We'd need to run similar scans on other people with similar memory capabilities, but these are few and far between.

There's also the problem of verifying someone's memory in terms of accuracy. If you ask them to remember the dates of major events, then yes, you can easily determine the accuracy of that. But many people can remember the dates of significant events (especially for ones like "9/11"). It's when you ask more personal life events that things get tricky. If someone describes the scene at their 7 th birthday and what presents they got, how you are supposed to confirm if they're remembering it correctly? It's impossible unless you have video footage of the event itself, and it's rare for scientists to go around publicly filming children they don't know. Such behaviour is frowned upon.

This may seem like needless pedantry; why would anyone lie about such a thing? Except it's not that they lie, it's that they could be remembering it wrongly and not realise they're doing it. Unlike computer memory, human memory is highly malleable. The questions we're asked, the number of times we've spoken about it, the company we're in, how much we've had to drink, all of these can alter and adjust our memories, to an often alarming degree.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

People's ability to accurately remember things is obviously very important for the legal system. Lucky everyone's memory is 100% reliable then... *cough* Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

Sadly, what research there is suggests that those people with incredible memories are just as susceptible to forming "false memories" as anyone else. What good is being able to remember vast amounts of information if you can't be sure any of it is accurate? The brain has been dealing with "Fake news" far longer than Google has.

False memories seem to arise when the brain has a few crumbs of information and extrapolates a memory from them. Sometimes this can be a pathological problem. But occasionally you can catch hints of it from people with powerful memories. For instance, someone claiming they have vivid memories from when they were 12 days old. The ability to remember this far back would be impressive enough, but when you also consider the fact the visual system is still undeveloped at that age, meaning babies can't even distinguish between colours until about 4 months old, it's damn near miraculous.

Maybe there is someone with a "perfect" memory out there. But if there is, we haven't found them yet. And perhaps we should hope there isn't. Those with incredible, innate memory prowess describe it as a mixed blessing at best. The increased demand on your thinking capacity, the constant dwelling in the past, the inability to escape painful or damaging experiences? If someone offered you all that, would you accept? Forget about it!
Dean Burnett would like to remind everyone that more in-depth discussion about this can be found in his debut book The Idiot Brain, currently Audible's most popular nonfiction audiobook. Available in the and many other countries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The perfect memory: does it even exist? | Dean Burnett

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Every now and then, you see news reports of people with incredible memories, able to recall every single thing from their life at a moment's notice. Initially, it may sound like an incredibly useful ability.

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2017/apr/27/the-perfect-memory-does-it-even-exist

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Does Photograpic memory

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http://www.aleph.se/Projekt/Handbok/Minne.html

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2602606/How-far-YOU-remember-Our-earliest-childhood-memories-form-age-three.html

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160517131928.htm

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/how-far-back-can-you-remember-when-earliest-memories-occur-962749

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This is a link to NE, with info regarding the theme.