1. An introduction to HSAM

Question 1

Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM)

Answer 1

• Individuals with HSAM have a superior ability to recall specific details of past (autobiographical) events
• condition was renamed to HSAM from its original label, hyperthymesia
• First published in February 2006 as “A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering,” in the journal Neurocase
• The term hyperthymesia is derived from the Modern Greek word thýmesē ‘memory’ and Ancient Greek hypér ‘over’.

Question 2

Jill Price

Answer 2

• In 2006, Professor James McGaugh and colleagues reported the first known case of HSAM in Jill Price.
• When provided with a date, Jill could specify on which day of the week it fell and what she did that day.

Question 3

why some people have HSAM: nature vs nurture.

Answer 3

• Some believe individuals with HSAM have different neural makeup to people with normal memory (McGaugh, Stark, & Yassa)
• others (Swedish psychologist K. Anders Ericsson) believe people with HSAM weren’t born with biological differences, instead, they believe it is derivative of other behaviours, such as having an obsessive compulsion to remember dates

Question 4

How many people have been diagonsed with HSAM and why could the number be higher

Answer 4

• only been diagnosed with 60 people in world
• People with HSAM don’t necessarily realise that their memory is unusual, so they don’t report their condition (major selection bias)

Question 5

Ericsson’s famous studies on memory in the 1980s

Answer 5

• In one he trained a man (named SF) with an average memory to report back as high as 80 digits in a row presented one digit at a time (Chase & Ericsson, 1982).
• Such studies suggest that people with HSAM have learnt techniques to recite vast quantities of information from when they were young by habit, rather than being born with biological differences that then lead to superior memory.

Question 6

Negatives of HSAM

Answer 6

• People with HSAM can have intrusive memories with overwhelming emotions.
• People with HSAM can have difficulties sleeping and planning.

Question 7

What do James McGaugh’s two studies (written about by New Scientist in 2016) imply about HSAM

Answer 7

• people with HSAM aren’t necessarily better at making memories, but they are better at retaining them over time.
• Maybe, the researchers theorized, those memories are crystallized because people with HSAM obsessively revisit the past — the same way a person with OCD might obsessively wash their hands, for example — which strengthens their memories in the process.
• The researchers also noted that the brains of people with HSAM, like those of people with OCD, tend to have larger caudates and putamens, two areas connected to movement and learning.

Question 8

Amitai Abramovitch at TXST on OCD link to HSAM

Answer 8

• skeptical of hypothesis that HSAM is a form of OCD
• past research has actually linked OCD to poorer memory in some areas.
• People with OCD also tend to have lower confidence in their memories, he says, a pattern that fits with the disorder’s characteristic perfectionism: Ask someone with OCD to recall a specific event, and often, “they’ll say ‘I don’t remember,’ because they don’t want to make a mistake.”
• believes that people with superior memories likely have OCD-like traits

Question 9

The relative importance of emotions in HSAM

Answer 9

Whereas those with other elevated recall abilities can remember physical details with remarkable precision, people with HSAM, while having these abilities to a certain extent, specialize in the personal, the emotional. They are master autobiographers able to remember exactly what they were doing, thinking, and, perhaps most important, feeling at any given moment in time.

Question 10

Craig Stark’s Quality and Quantity of Retention Over Time

Answer 10

• originally he thought that HSAM subjects begin at a richer starting point, encoding more details as soon as an event has occurred. In reality, the differences only emerged months down the line: whereas for the other subjects, they had become faded and vague, for the HSAM subjects the events were still just as fresh. “It must be something about the way they hold on to the information that the rest of us aren’t doing,” Stark says.

Question 11

HSAM anatomical differences

Answer 11

• Enhanced connectivity between frontal lobes and hippocampus, (associated with memory).
• Skills like music, sports, language linked to these brain characteristics.
• Uncertainty: Do these traits cause skill development or result from it? (Chicken or egg)
• Repetitive practice can reshape brain structure.
• Innate brain attributes may predispose individuals to excel in specific skills.

Question 12

Patihis, L. (2016). Individual differences and correlates of highly superior autobiographical memory.

Answer 12

• profiled around 20 people with HSAM. found that they scored particularly highly on two measures: fantasy proneness and absorption. Fantasy proneness could be considered a tendency to imagine and daydream, whereas absorption is the tendency to allow your mind to become immersed in an activity – to pay complete attention to the sensations and the experiences.
• idea is that everyone goes through that process (ie. on their wedding day) but that HSAM people are doing it everyday

Question 13

Patihis on fantasy proneness

Answer 13

Not everyone with a tendency to fantasise will develop HSAM, though, so Patihis suggests that something must have caused them to think so much about their past – as opposed to films or aeroplanes, say. “Maybe some experience in their childhood meant that they became obsessed with calendars and what happened to them,” says Patihis.

Question 14

Flashbulb memories

Answer 14

• one type of autobiographical memory
• six characteristic features: place, ongoing activity, informant, own affect, other affect, and aftermath.
• Principle determinants are High surprise, High consequentiality, & Emotional arousal
• term coined by Brown and Kulik in 1977
• can be produced, but do not need to be, from a positive or negative event
• Many experimenters question the accuracy of Flashbulb Memories, but rehearsal of the event is to blame
• People with HSAM have more than flashbulb memories; they see full series of events.

Question 15

Positive and negative memories

Answer 15

• Positive events prompt higher rates of reliving, sensory imagery, and vividness.
• Such events are pivotal to individuals’ identities, leading to increased rehearsal and subjective clarity in memory encoding.
• Conversely, negative events trigger detail-oriented, conservative processing strategies.
• Negative flashbulb memories are more unpleasant and may lead to avoidance of reliving the event.
• This avoidance might reduce the emotional intensity of the memory but doesn’t diminish its consequences.

Question 16

(Patihis et al., 2013)

Answer 16

• study found they were susceptible to false memories
• HSAM individuals reconstruct memories using associative grouping and incorporating post-event information
• This suggests reconstructive memory mechanisms causing distortions are common in humans, challenging the assumption of immunity

Question 17

Autobiographical memory network

Answer 17

A network of brain regions involved in the encoding, storage, and retrieval of personal memories related to one’s own life experiences. This network typically includes regions such as the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, and temporal cortex.

Question 18

Precuneus & role in HSAM

Answer 18

A region located in the medial parietal lobe of the brain, involved in various cognitive functions including episodic memory retrieval, self-processing, visuospatial processing, and consciousness. It is part of the default mode network and plays a crucial role in autobiographical memory retrieval and self-referential processing.
- (Mazzoni et al., 2019): study emphasized the precuneus’s role and unique initial memory access in HSAM

Question 19

Santangelo, V. et al. (2018) ‘Enhanced brain activity associated with memory access in highly superior autobiographical memory,’

Answer 19

Using fMRI, this study examined neural activation during retrieval of autobiographical memories (AMs) and semantic memories (SMs) in HSAM subjects and controls. Subjects recalled AMs and SMs while undergoing brain scans. HSAM subjects exhibited superior AM retrieval, with increased activation in brain regions like the medial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction, and enhanced connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. These findings suggest the critical role of these systems in enabling HSAM.

Question 20

Tracy Alloway on HSAM & OCD

Answer 20

“The OCD idea fits,” says Tracy Alloway at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville. She says that the neural pathways we use to recall memories are like garden paths: if we don’t keep them organised, they become overgrown and blocked. “If you’re habitually recalling memories then you’re keeping those pathways clear, so you’re more likely to be able to retrieve that information faster at a later date.”

Question 21

Patihis et al., 2013 False memories in highly superior autobiographical memory individuals

Answer 21

This study examines memory distortion susceptibility in individuals with highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM). Contrary to expectations, HSAM individuals were found to be as vulnerable to memory distortions as controls. They exhibited normal levels of susceptibility to false recognition of critical lure words and misinformation tasks, including recalling nonexistent news footage. These findings suggest that malleable reconstructive memory mechanisms are fundamental to episodic remembering, even in individuals with exceptional memory abilities. The study underscores the ubiquity of potentially fallible memory reconstruction mechanisms in human memory

Question 22

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) Task

Answer 22

The DRM task helps scientists study false memories. Participants are given lists of related words, like “nurse” and “hospital.” Later, they’re asked to recall these words and others, like “doctor,” which weren’t actually on the list. Surprisingly, many people remember seeing the additional word, showing our brains can create false memories based on word connections.
- Some researchers think this kind of false memory might actually be useful in certain situations. For example, it helps us remember the main idea of something, like remembering a list of words was about “doctors,” even if the word “doctor” wasn’t actually there. This suggests that our memory is adaptive and helps us focus on the big picture.f

Question 23

Episodic memory

Answer 23

Episodic memory is the ability to remember specific events from our lives, like birthday parties or vacations, along with the emotions and context associated with them. It’s part of long-term memory, alongside semantic memory, which stores facts and concepts. Coined by Endel Tulving in 1972, episodic memory involves recalling events with a sense of time, connection to the self, and autonoetic consciousness. Recollection may also involve visual imagery, narrative structure, and retrieval of feelings. Episodic memory helps us learn from past experiences, influencing future behavior, like being cautious around dogs after a negative encounter.

Question 24

Intresting takeaways from (Ford et al., 2022) Enhanced semantic memory in a case of highly superior autobiographical memory.

Answer 24

• RS demonstrated parallel memory processing: Her brain appears to access multiple memories simultaneously, allowing her to recall distant events with the same ease as recent ones
• absence of significant differences in brain structure compared to normal brains suggests that her remarkable memory is not solely attributable to structural brain changes. Instead, it implies that her extraordinary memory might stem from unique cognitive processes. These processes could involve highly efficient encoding and retrieval mechanisms, enhanced connectivity between brain regions involved in memory, or heightened attention and focus during encoding, among other possibilities.

Question 25

Elaborative encoding

Answer 25

mnemonic system which uses some form of elaboration, such as an emotional cue, to assist in the retention of memories and knowledge.
- Practitioners use multiple techniques, such as the method of loci, the link system, the peg-word method, PAO (person, action, object), etc., to store information in long-term memory and to make it easier to recall this information in the future