Conversion and Reyes

[kayjayoh]

Memories that I can date specifically are from the Thanksgiving when I was just a few months shy of three when I went to the emergency room after biting my tongue, and the spring a few months after turning three, when my little sister was born. I have more memories in the 2/3 area, but none of them can be matched to a specific date.

[Elizabeth Bear]

Chaz could have been breastfed as a baby quite successfully - even with an increased calorie requirement. And if his mother had continued to supplement him with breastmilk even after weaning, then he wouldn't have needed anything more. Breastmilk works on a supply and demand basis, so she could have easily produced enough milk - and that would have given him an excellent start to life. Breastfed babies digest their food very efficiently, so "training" the digestive system like could have helped when he was older.

Sadly, this, while an excellent theory, does not always work in practice. (I know more than one woman who was unable to produce enough breast milk for her child.)

[Elizabeth Bear]

See, now that seems kind of odd for me. Heck, it seems odd that earlier than about eighteen months I only remember bits and pieces, and often without that much context. One of my earlier memories is of being in the crib in the northwest bedroom of the cap hill house (though this was before everything got mapped on to compass points - and this was after I'd been moved into that room after managing to pull a large portion of plaster off the wall in my previous bedroom) and holding on to the side while yelling my head off because my mom had given me water, not milk, in my bottle, and I wanted milk. But while I was kind of indignant, I mostly kept it up because I liked jumping up and down and yelling.

(I do gather my memory is kind of weird, though of course I don't another for comparison. My advisor still believes that I have an eidetic memory when I'm not in a lot of pain, and that it's okay for me - which implies that he thinks it's not okay for most people and I haven't really pursued his whole line of reasoning there. I rather suspect he's wrong about it, but since I haven't found formal criteria for such things, I guess I can't really say. My auditory memory is pretty good if I'm paying attention, and my visual memory isn't bad, but I'm pretty terrible at sequence if I can't pull it out of the audio.

I'd say based on evidence here that you do have an eidetic memory. (Which is not at all like a photographic memory, as shown on TV, other than on Criminal Minds, which gets it right. They have a visual eidetic.)

I was a kinesthetic eidetic until my teens, and I still have a very strong kinesthetic memory. It's useful, as long as I was the one to put something away. *g*

My visual intelligence, on the other hand, is on the low end of normal (possibly this is linked to my crappy eyesight), so if I am *looking* for something instead of *remembering where it is,* I can look right at it and not see it.

La.

[Jezabella49]

I was a kinesthetic eidetic until my teens, and I still have a very strong kinesthetic memory. It's useful, as long as I was the one to put something away. *g*

Is "kinesthetic" what you call it when you know exactly where something is, and can walk over and get it, but cannot ~tell~ someone where it is?

My husband drives me crazy asking me to tell him where such-and-such is, "No, no, don't get up, just tell me where it is and I'll get it."  I can't. . . but I can go over directly to it, and get it myself.

[Elizabeth Bear]

Yep. Congratulations, and welcome to the world's smallest dominant sensorium!

[DavidG]

See, now that seems kind of odd for me. Heck, it seems odd that earlier than about eighteen months I only remember bits and pieces

I remember a handful of things pre-four, most of them traumatic in one way or another. I don't know what's typical for that age or later (and being dyspraxic I'm not typical). Given that abilities like abstraction develop quite late and within a varying range, it seems reasonable that the ability to recall early memories may be linked to brain development and vary between individuals. And if you consider that a fairly large proportion of the population (estimates range up to 20%) have some degree of dyspraxia, which can cause short term memory issues, then the lack of a typical experience may be typical

[txanne]

I was a kinesthetic eidetic until my teens, and I still have a very strong kinesthetic memory. It's useful, as long as I was the one to put something away. *g*

Paging Posy Fossil!

My visual intelligence, on the other hand, is on the low end of normal (possibly this is linked to my crappy eyesight), so if I am *looking* for something instead of *remembering where it is,* I can look right at it and not see it.

La.

Heh. I learn through my eyes, and I *still* don't see stuff I'm looking right at. I have to remember where stuff is too, and woe unto me if I move it when I'm tired, because I'll never find it again. This leads to alarming and wobbly stacks of clutter.

[Elizabeth Bear]

In my case, it leads to an almost pathological lack of filing system, because I know where stuff is....

[saoba]

In my case, it leads to an almost pathological lack of filing system, because I know where stuff is....

*nod* I have a tendency to not only know where stuff is but to recall a thing's location by repeating
a gesture or posture associated with the thing. Hence the 'where is my glass' gesture and the walking
around the house looking for my cell phone by holding my hand as if I were calling something up
in the phone's menu.

I can look right at something and not 'see' it when searching for it then take a breath, cup
my hand as if holding it and walk right to it. If I know I'm going to need to remember where an
item is later I often pat at it once or twice when I put it down to key it into memory storage.

[Jezabella49]

Yep. Congratulations, and welcome to the world's smallest dominant sensorium!

Thank you.  I learn the oddest things on the internets.

In my case, it leads to an almost pathological lack of filing system, because I know where stuff is....

This has been another of my husband's complaints.  I'm working on that;  he needs to know where the important papers, receipts, etc are, too.  I've actually got file folders and a file drawer. Not that all the things that belong there have gotten there.

I wonder if the "kinesthetic" thing is why, once I've been to a place, (like my husband's parents' house) I can usually find it again.  The subsequent times traveling a route, it's almost like there is a film playing in my head of what I'm going to see next when I take this turn or that turn.  Or if that is the "visual memory" at work.  I definitely like to have directions with me the first time I go.

Oh, I very seldom have problems getting back home from a new place if it is possible to retrace my path.  When I have to go back by a completely different way, not so much.

Also, I had a head injury some years back (was in my car when it was totaled, concussion, post concussion syndrome) that scrambled things for a while. My memory is still good, but it takes more work to get something from short term to long term memory than before.  And I'm more likely to write lists now than before.

[glinda_w]

Yep. Congratulations, and welcome to the world's smallest dominant sensorium!

Oh. So that's what that is.

Despite the other memory problems, this one still works, unless I'm under extreme stress and haven't noticed, even subconsciously, where I set something down.

Heh.

[Felicia1066]

See, now that seems kind of odd for me. Heck, it seems odd that earlier than about eighteen months I only remember bits and pieces

I remember a handful of things pre-four, most of them traumatic in one way or another. I don't know what's typical for that age or later (and being dyspraxic I'm not typical). Given that abilities like abstraction develop quite late and within a varying range, it seems reasonable that the ability to recall early memories may be linked to brain development and vary between individuals. And if you consider that a fairly large proportion of the population (estimates range up to 20%) have some degree of dyspraxia, which can cause short term memory issues, then the lack of a typical experience may be typical

Hmm. Well, I don't think anyone would classify me as dyspraxic, and I still don't have any memories that I can firmly date to any age earlier than four or five. (I may be a lousy dancer, but I'm only mildly clumsy. And I may be bad at judging distances, proportions, weight, etc, but it's more about putting a name to the measurements than not being able to put my hand on something when I reach for it. I was really early with things like sitting up, crawling and walking, and maths comes easy to me. If I have any developmental issues, they're of the social kind.) It's also not blocked out due to an abusive childhood or anything like that. I just plain don't remember anything, and I have no idea why that is.

I am very near-sighted, and probably was at a fairly early age, but didn't get glasses until I was almost seven, so perhaps that plays a part in it. But I do have visual memories from around four or five....

[Bunny M]

I was a kinesthetic eidetic until my teens, and I still have a very strong kinesthetic memory. It's useful, as long as I was the one to put something away. *g*

Is "kinesthetic" what you call it when you know exactly where something is, and can walk over and get it, but cannot ~tell~ someone where it is?

My husband drives me crazy asking me to tell him where such-and-such is, "No, no, don't get up, just tell me where it is and I'll get it."  I can't. . . but I can go over directly to it, and get it myself.

Huh. I recently slammed up against that experience when The Housemate asked me to tell her the password to our home wireless network, and I couldn't. I knew it, instantly, but couldn't vocalise the damn thing. I ended up just typing it into a notepad document for her to read.   

[Korvar]

My earliest memory is at my brother's third birthday.  I'm 13 months younger than he is, so my birthday was a month later; I reasoned (demanded) that a candle should be taken off his cake, and I blow them out, as it was nearly my birthday anyway.  This made perfect sense to not-quite-two-year-old me, although now that seems terribly bratty behaviour...

This annoys my brother somewhat, as it is apparently his earliest memory, too, even though he's a year older than me.  Maybe we just led uneventful lives up until this point...

[tylik]

I'd say based on evidence here that you do have an eidetic memory. (Which is not at all like a photographic memory, as shown on TV, other than on Criminal Minds, which gets it right. They have a visual eidetic.)

I was a kinesthetic eidetic until my teens, and I still have a very strong kinesthetic memory. It's useful, as long as I was the one to put something away. *g*

My visual intelligence, on the other hand, is on the low end of normal (possibly this is linked to my crappy eyesight), so if I am *looking* for something instead of *remembering where it is,* I can look right at it and not see it.

La.

What a strange and prickly gift this morning's conversation has been. (I read it first some six hours ago, before yoga and math and forms and coming in to find that yesterday's surgical slug has escaped and is currently doing a good job of passing in the larger slug population...) I'm think I can avoid peppering your with questions around a general theme of "dear gods, do you mean its supposed to* work like this?" now. Apparently, despite having convinced myself at least that I'm fairly well adjusted around this all, it still carries some emotional charge.

Do you have any references you'd recommend? I know a reasonable amount about classical and medieval Ars Memoria, and know a fair bit about memory formation and structure from a neuroanatomical and neuroscience perspective... and it occurs to me much less from a psychological perspective, which is kind of silly. (When my PI** started in on me about it - and this was last year, when my spine kind of decided to take off without me, and life was kind of sucking - I mostly hit the medical and neuroscience references that I had close at hand, decided that it seemed like there wasn't even a clear consensus what an eidetic memory was or whether such existed at all, shrugged and went on. I suspect much of that was that I didn't want to deal - right then it didn't take much to hit my "don't want to deal" threshold.) It's especially silly because the few times it did come up in class were intriguing. Discussing, for instance, one of the first case studies of a purported eidetic, and how while his retrieval ability was very good, his integrative ability - my words there - was kind of poor, and he often hadn't abstracted a knowledge structure from the things that he'd learned. And while my retrieval is good, well, I'd be *extremely* surprised if anyone I'd worked with would accuse me of having that problem. If anything, rather the other extreme.

Much to think about. Particularly the distinction between spatial, kinesthetic (for me the two are pretty integrated, I think) and visual. I think until I was about 16, and took a couple of CC classes in formal design, I mostly just used visual as a an acquisition mode for spatial data. Learning how to draw taught me something about the distinction between vision, which is all about light, and objects, and ever since there's been a raw data vision stream I can tap kind of like there's a raw audio stream, though it's a little more erratic.

Yipes. But this is long, and I still have a slug to find. (And code to write, and...)

* And yes, supposed to is pretty meaningless in this context.
** My PI is wonderful, and he can most cope with how I think - heck, and not only does he not run screaming from the room when K and I drop into shorthand, but he actually follows us about half the time, which is unheard of, though he doesn't do quite so well when it's just me - and has generally been an altogether supportive, kind and helpful. He also has a hobby of trying to pry out my psyche and stick it under the dissecting scope, which might even also be useful, but is a little disconcerting.