I can forget what I studied for an exam, but others can remember. Then you have people with eidedic memory that don’t forget at all.
In: Biology
Actual eidetic memory involves being able to hold very detailed visual images for a brief period of time. If I show you a picture of a city street and then take it away, it’s very unlikely that you’ll be able to tell me what color dress the young lady waiting for the bus was wearing. However, a person with eidetic memory could still ‘see’ the image and focus in on that one particular detail (at least for a time).
The magical kind of memory you’re talking about doesn’t exist.
In terms of remembering, your brain is just a large correlation engine. This means you’re much more likely to remember what is highly correlated with other elements of your memory. A musician might be able to remember how to play thousands of songs, but would struggle to remember their phone number. Not only can they contextualize all of those songs within the data of all the other songs they know, but they constantly reinforce those memories by playing the music in settings which add multi-sensory cues. In contrast, they can’t remember their phone number because the only time they ever use it is when they fill out forms asking for it.
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