A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering

Authors: Parker, Elizabeth; Cahill, Larry; McGaugh, James

Source: Neurocase, Volume 12, Number 1, February 2006 , pp. 35-49(15)

Publisher: Psychology Press, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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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.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13554790500473680

Affiliations: 1: Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and Department of Neurobiology and behavior, University of California, Irvine, California, USA

Publication date: 2006-02-01