Eidetic Memory VS. Photographic Memory: What Is It?

Are people interested in self-development face the question: eidetic memory vs. photographic memory: what is the difference? They are two different types of memory with similar features, so many people often confuse them. Let’s try to figure them out.

What Is the Difference Between Eidetic Memory VS. Photographic Memory?

If you wonder about the difference between eidetic memory and photographic memory, you need to understand the basic definitions.

Eidetic memory is a particular type of short-term memory that reflects a person’s ability to reproduce an image in their mind immediately after viewing it. If you do not return to this data within two months, it will most likely be deleted and not go into long-term memory.

Photographic memory is a special kind of long-term memory. The person sees the image and then can reproduce it perfectly well as if it were a photograph. Unfortunately, such a good memory is scarce, and it is usually possessed by great scientists or politicians such as Charles Darwin, Nikola Tesla, and Teddy Roosevelt. On the other hand, eyewitnesses claim that they could reproduce information with incredible detail and accuracy, even if they saw the image only once in their life.

There is one more definition that needs to be clarified. Hyperthymesia is a person’s ability to remember all the events from his or her biography as accurately as possible. People can retell a conversation from ten years ago or paint a landscape that they saw once in the past. Such phenomenal abilities are pretty rare.

The difference between Hyperthymesia and photographic memory is that a person remembers only events, and in the second case, a person can remember documents that came into hands.

What is worth developing eidetic memory vs. photographic memory? Practice shows that photographic memory is often innate, and it is challenging to train it. Not every person will be able to achieve such results. Concerning eidetic memory, you can improve your condition through simple training.

How to Improve Eidetic Memory?

Before moving on to training to improve eidetic memory, it is necessary to conduct a small test that will determine the initial state of the memory. For example, some people can immediately reproduce an image for 10 – 12 seconds (this is an excellent result). And for others – only 3 seconds. Thus, the teaching method depends on the level of memory.

The simplest and most effective method is to use a mobile application. There is already a well-thought-out system here that has proven to be effective.

It is worth training for 20 – 30 minutes a day in a relaxed atmosphere. It would be best if you weren’t distracted by anything. Interactive learning will improve the memorization of large amounts of information; the result will be noticeable in a couple of weeks.

To supplement training, experts advise:

• Read more;
• Explore cityscapes,
• Memorize poems or phone numbers;
• Consider more pictures and try to reproduce them;
• Solve puzzles.

Before going to bed, try to mentally reproduce the beautiful places or images you saw during the day. Detail is of great importance here. You can even sketch them if you wish.

In addition, it is imperative to establish sleep because the performance of the brain depends on it. You can also adjust your diet a little: add more redfish, chocolate, turmeric, and other foods that stimulate the brain.

Conclusion

What is the difference between eidetic memory vs. photographic memory? The main difference lies in how long people can store information in their mind and how easily they remember it. On the other hand, photographic memory is most often innate and very difficult to develop.

The concept for improving eidetic memory is quite simple – it is essential to train it every day. Such exercises do not take much time, but they give good results quickly enough. Moreover, people with good eidetic memory are more successful with statistics, less scattered, and feel more confident.