Hyperthymesia, also known as piking or hyperthymestic syndrome, is a condition in which an individual possesses a superior autobiographical memory, meaning he or she can recall the vast majority of personal experiences and events in his or her life. The term "hyperthymesia" is derived from the Greek words thymesis meaning "remembering," and hyper meaning "excessive".
Individuals with hyperthymesia can recall almost every day of their lives in near perfect detail, as well as public events that hold some personal significance to them. Those affected describe their memories as uncontrollable associations, when they encounter a date, they "see" a vivid depiction of that day in their heads. Recollection occurs without hesitation or conscious effort.
It is important to draw a distinction between those with hyperthymesia and those with other forms of exceptional memory, who generally use mnemonic or similar rehearsal strategies to memorise long strings of subjective information. Memories recalled by hyperthymestic individuals tend to be personal, autobiographical accounts of both significant and mundane events in their lives. This extensive and highly unusual memory does not derive from the use of mnemonic strategies; it is encoded involuntarily and retrieved automatically. Despite being able to remember the day of the week on which a particular date fell, hyperthymestics are not calendrical calculators like some people with autism or savant syndrome. Rather, hyperthymestic recall tends to be constrained to a person's lifetime and is believed to be an unconscious process.
Although hyperthymestics are not autistic, and likewise savants do not memorise autobiographical information, there are certain similarities between the two conditions. Like autistic savants, individuals with hyperthymesia have an unusual and obsessive interest in dates. Scientists have not yet been able to explain this mysterious ability but a new paper in the peer-reviewed journal, Neurobiology of Learning & Memory's July issue, offers the first scientific findings about nearly a dozen people with this uncanny ability.
Scientists researching this remarkable kind of memory - that they previously did not believe humans could possess - have discovered intriguing differences in the brains and mental processes of this extraordinary group of people who can effortlessly recall every moment of their lives since about age 10.
