What is Your Memory Specialty?

[CROWN COUNCIL]

Maybe you have admired people who seem to have a photographic memory. That would be the kind of memory that having seen something you would be able to retrieve it from your memory just like a photograph.  You could retrieve it from your memory at will and examine it in detail just like you would a painting or a photographic print from your camera.

 

If you think you know someone who seems to have such a memory, you will be interested in the findings of Barry Gordon, a professor of neurology at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine.  He maintains that noone is known to have a true photographic memory. For instance, he notes that a person may have particular memory skills in one domain but such a vision is not a guarantee of great memory across the board.  He notes that the winner of the memory Olympics still has to keep a sticky note on his refrigerator door containing his plan-a-day.   He says that there are many different types of memory and what we lack in one type may exist in another.   For instance one person may have a particularly good memory for names and faces, another may have an unusually good memory for speech dialogue or matters related to a business interest, a hobby or another field of endeavor.  

 

So instead of spending your time and energies worrying about what memory skills you don’t seem to have, devote that energy discovering and developing the areas in which you have superior mental skills. You might just discover a superior memory skill in a area you never knew was superior to that of your every-day friends and associates.  As   you develop it, who knows, you may discover that your friends who are not acquainted with Dr. Barry Gordon may envy you as someone who has a photographic memory.  Let them think it while you continue to enjoy your own memory specialty .

 

Gregory B. Anderson–director