
Severely deficient autobiographical memory in healthy adults (2015) - monort
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002839321500158X
======
kache_
Personally, I have terrible autobiographical memory. I have no concept of the
sequence of events as I recall them. For example, I know my father flew in to
meet my fiance at the time, but I'm not sure what season it was, and for that
matter I'm not even sure what year it was. I have to be constantly reminded by
my wife about my important life events. I never thought I had a poor "memory"
until my wife started to bring it up.

Curiously, this (self perceived) ailment has not hindered my ability to do
well in academia and work. Once I learn a fact, I'll remember it forever -
random details from senior chemistry class are still fresh in my mind. I
believe it has something to do with my inability to record the sequence of
memories, rather than my ability to recall them.

Edit: Hopefully SDAM gets further investigation. If people are wondering what
I've learned to do to cope with this deficiency, I've got some recommendations

\- Learn to build habits - it's difficult to remember promises that you make
to yourself and to others; but habits will stick forever.

\- Keep a calendar - for everything.

\- Take physical pictures of excursions and life events, and date them

~~~
ma2rten
That sounds normal to me. Maybe I also have a terrible autobiographical
memory. But maybe your wife just has an exceptionally good memory?

~~~
shantly
It took me until my mid 20s to realize something was wrong with me. I have a
few impressions here and there from my past but can only roughly order any of
it and mostly it's just _gone_ , by a day or two later.

Probably why my most dreaded assignment every single year in elementary school
was "write about what you did over the break" or "write about a fun time that
[something from your past]". I'd struggle with those for _way_ longer than was
intended. Not kidding, hardest schoolwork I had K-5. Occasionally things like
that would still come up in later grades but by then I'd figured out I could
just make up most of it and no-one would care, which solved the problem.

~~~
cma
You do seem to have a pretty good memory of those assignments from school
though, especially if it goes back to kindergarten.

~~~
shantly
I remember the general phenomenon. I couldn't tell you about any one of them
in particular. That's about how my memory works.

"Oh that was totally a thing, yeah, I feel this way about it."

"Oh neat, can you tell me about a time that happened?"

"Um. No, not a single detail nor do I have any certainty when or how many
times it may have happened. More than one I think? A half dozen? Over...
years? Starting... youngish?"

Trying to conjure up something relevant I get an _incredibly_ impressionistic
snapshot of I think some desks. Row? Pod? Dunno. It's... sunny? That's 100% of
what I've got. No people or other objects are present. Just a splatter of
colors that may be some desks in some configuration.

The only memories I _used_ to have in any detail were ones where I'd done
something bad (I had a perhaps too-well tuned sense of "bad" for a kid, mind,
though fortunately that also meant I didn't do bad things that much) and
that's only because I'd spend like an hour cataloguing and re-living and
ruminating over all of them every. Single. Night. Those are almost entirely
gone now too, as I managed to break myself of that years ago.

It's really sad now that I have kids. Mostly I just try not to think about how
I'm _kinda sorta_ more dead than most people, in a sense, even as I live. If
not for the fact that being clever is so valuable to my family (as in it pays
the bills) I'd trade a bit of that for a somewhat better autobiographical
memory without hesitation.

I tried to hold on to a couple vivid memories of my kids when they were very
young by re-playing them a few times a day, but I slipped too many times and
those are mostly gone too. Kept one semi-intact for a year or two, which is
really good for me. There's a bit left, but not much. I don't even remember
what the others were at all.

------
slx26
I've always had an extremely bad memory, paired with behaviors that probably
don't help at all. I have always thought (non-scientific, highly subjective
text ahead) that a big part of the problem (the behavioral side) is that I
never talk about the events of my life with others. I'm highly asocial, and
even when I end up explaining something, I hate to repeat the same stories
twice. I use alarms and calendars for everything. I've come to think that a
big problem for my memory is precisely the fact that I never reinforce
previous memories, I never link or associate them to new memories (for
example, of myself reviving the memories when explaining them to other
people). So, there's no repetition, and they kinda fade away sooner than
later. The more disconnected the memories remain, the harder it becomes to
recall them.

~~~
Mirioron
> _I have always thought (non-scientific, highly subjective text ahead) that a
> big part of the problem (the behavioral side) is that I never talk about the
> events of my life with others._

I've had the same hunch. I think some memories need repeating so that you can
continue remembering them. Most of the memories that I have from my early
childhood are ones that I think about once in a while. I had three serious
falls with a skateboard before the age of 7, but I only remember the worst of
the falls. It's the one I always thought of when I was reminded of those falls
(broke a tooth, so any time I look in the mirror I might be reminded of it).
At this point I only remember that I did fall before the worst one and I
remember the extent of my injuries, but I don't even remember the specific
place of it.

~~~
gist
> I think some memories need repeating so that you can continue remembering
> them. Most of the memories that I have from my early childhood are ones that
> I think about once in a while.

I think this is exactly true. And for example if someone else is involved in
the memory and you relate it to them they wonder 'how did you remember that it
happened X years ago??'. But as you say it's that every now and then (at least
with me) you have thought about it and reinforced the memory. The other person
has not typically. Which is why they are surprised that you remember the
event. So yes you 'remind' yourself I think this is true from what I
experience as well.

------
JshWright
"inability to vividly recollect personally experienced events from a first-
person perspective"

I don't understand that... There is no perspective to my memories of events,
they're just things I know happened.

For instance, I went for a run this morning. I know where I went, I know what
the weather was like, etc. Am I supposed to be able "vividly recollect" like
some sort of imaginary first-person shooter?

~~~
mikelevins
It's not a matter of "supposed to", but yes, that's part of the capability
that is being discussed.

There seem to be a couple of different dimensions of variation in how human
memory and imagination work. One is what is discussed here: the ability to
"vividly" reconstruct remembered events "from a first-person perspective".
Apparently, some people can do it, and others cannot. Presumably, there's a
range of abilities in between.

At one end of the spectrum are people with hyperthymesia, who appear to be
able to instantly reconstruct every tiny detail, including visual details from
a first-person perspective, of everything they've ever experienced. At the
other end are people like those discussed in this article.

Another dimension is how vividly and comprehensively people can construct,
manipulate, and experience sensory models in their imaginations. Again, the
spectrum seems to run from aphantasia at one end (that's the inability to
construct mental imagery at all) to someone like Stephen Wiltshire, who
appears to have an eidetic visual memory that enables him to draw large,
detailed landscapes with roughly photographic accuracy after briefly seeing a
scene a single time.

People with aphantasia generally seem to assume that when others describe
mental imagery, they are being metaphorical; that they don't mean that they
actually experience mental imagery in a literal sense. Contrariwise, I do
actually experience mental imagery in a literal sense. In my late teens I
became fascinated with a series of exercises devised by Aleister Crowley, in
which you practice constructing increasingly elaborate assemblies of colorful
3D shapes moving in different ways. The goal was to see how many shapes you
could manage at once and keep all of the shapes, colors, textures, and
movement patterns stable for as long as possible.

I assume an aphantastic person would think Crowley was joking or bullshitting,
until they learned that some people can indeed construct and manipulate
detailed mental images.

Further complicating the subject, we also know from experiments in psychology
of perception that the brain tends to edit memories, altering their content
over time. I'd be interested to know how this tendency interacts with the
variables mentioned above.

I'm somewhere in the middle on both axes discussed above. I experience
memories in the first person, and I remember and dream in color. When
navigating, I rely on a 3D model of where I am and where I'm going, and if
asked to go somewhere I haven't been before, I want to see a map that I can
use to refresh and supplement that mental model.

By contrast, my mother navigates procedurally. She wants a sequence of
operations to perform: "turn right here; go a certain distance looking for
such and such a building,..." and so on. I _can_ navigate that way, but I find
it much more difficult and error-prone than just constructing the 3D model.
From what my mother says, I'm not sure she can construct a model like that at
all.

Signs of the difference show up in, for example, the kind of information each
of us wants when being directed to a new place. She wants detailed step-by-
step instructions; I want coordinates in space and some identifying
information (like the street address) to confirm when I've arrived at the
right place. She will follow directions to the letter. I'll just pick a route
that points in the right direction and improvise until I'm close enough to
look for the confirming data.

~~~
11thEarlOfMar
For most of my adult life, I've felt that I have a problem with my memory. I
cannot recall much of my past life. I can know things happen, and there are a
few circumstances that I can recall visually. The visual recollections are
retrieved as a series of photos, not like a video.

A few years ago, I discovered that I had a vitamin B12 deficiency. B12 is a
contributor to memory, so I was hopeful that by clearing up the deficiency, my
memory would improve. I'd have to say I don't think so, but it's a pretty
subjective question. At least, I can say it was not dramatic, if improved at
all.

Otherwise, I am quite introverted, on the spectrum. I focus on my thoughts
much more than what is going on around me, and that strikes me as a more
likely cause. The events are not imprinted because I am not paying attention.

~~~
jcims
I'm pretty much in the same boat.

I have an experiment for you. If you listen to podcasts regularly while doing
other stuff, pull one up that you've listened to in the past 3-5 days and
listen to it again. When I do this, I will periodically get a stream of
_vivid_ movies of what I was doing when I listened to it the first time. I'm
talking an intrusive replay of the sensory experience I was having previously.

My next step is to fire up a dash cam and listen to podcasts while I'm
driving, then re-listen a few days later and record myself describing what I
see as I'm listening. Then sync the two videos and see how close my
description is describing what I saw the first time.

~~~
gorbachev
When I was a teenager I used to read (fictional) books while listening to
music at the same time.

For years afterwards listening to the same music would make my mind imagine
events in the books I was reading listening to the same music. I'm not sure
exactly when it stopped happening though.

~~~
krisgee
Final Fantasy 4 and Stairway to Heaven are inextricably linked in my mind for
a similar reason.

~~~
o-__-o
For me it’s Stunts and Bone Thugs n Harmony, E. 1999 Eternal. Listened to that
CD on repeat building tracks on an IBM ps/2 as a kid.

Also Biggie’s Warning and anything Visual Basic 3.0. I don’t know why

------
Vaslo
Reminds me of a line from David Lynch’s “Lost Highway” when the character is
asked why he doesn’t like video recordings of things in his life- “I like to
remember things my own way. How I remembered them. Not necessarily the way
they happened.”

I think deep down we are all a little like that.

~~~
antisuji
Which reminds me of Ted Chiang's story "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of
Feeling"[1] about exactly this tension.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_of_Feeling)

------
pjungwir
I probably have some mild aphantasia, because my imagination doesn't usually
include vivid pictures. I'm also pretty bad at graphic design and home
decorating. On the other hand I do see things in dreams. And all my life even
non-spatial things, like mathematical/logical/grammatical relationships, have
felt like they had a spatial arrangement to them. And maybe this is something
else, but I remember it wasn't until college that my own reasoning really
started to feel "verbal".

Once I was reading a 20th century philosopher who was criticizing Locke and
others of his time for describing knowledge or ideas as mental imagery, saying
that of course it's not like we really see pictures in our heads. I wish I
could remember who this was. I want to say Saussure or Deleuze. I was
personally more sympathetic to Locke, but I could see this writer's point (or
not, heh). It's funny to think that aphantasia has influenced philosophy.

I'm also curious what relation aphantasia has to chess-playing ability. I'm a
pretty good chess player (for someone who doesn't take it seriously), but I
can't see the board in my head at all. Grandmasters can play whole games
blindfolded, and Magnus Carlsen has a YouTube video playing ten opponents at a
time while blindfolded. I have to try really hard just to "see" a 3x3
position. I guess aphantasia makes it hard to mentally play a few moves and
then stop and assess whether the new position is good for white or black, or
even just notice basic tactics in it.

~~~
mmazing
I think I'm in the same boat as you. I've discussed this with my spouse and
we've determined that my mind's eye is pretty impaired. It's there, but just
barely.

I totally agree with the "spatial arrangement" of math/logic etc, I'm a
software engineer and arranging and abstracting things into their logical
parts internally comes as easily as looking at component parts laid out on a
table to me (although it's not really visual).

In regards to chess (I'm pretty decent at chess) I think it's like this, if
you wrote a chess program, you wouldn't write it to visualize the
representation of the board, you would set up variables to track state, etc. I
think my "internal representations" of abstractions are just that, variables
that my mind is tracking and understanding the relationships between, as
easily as any other sense.

~~~
p1anecrazy
While looking for a way to explain my own aphantasia, I came across the works
of Temple Grandin, a poster child of high-functioning autism. Since there is
no physiological test for ASD, I believe that the following cognition types
may be presented within the general audiences as well, however, they are not
treated as outliers as long as their 'owners' have sufficient social skills.
Thus, I suggest that you ignore autism/ASD references below:

"I have observed that there are three different specialized autistic/Asperger
cognitive types. They are:

1) Visual thinkers such as I, who are often poor at algebra. 2) Verbal
specialists who are good at talking and writing but they lack visual skills.
3) Pattern thinkers such as Daniel Tammet, who excel in math and music but may
have problems with reading or writing composition." [1]

"<...>Chess masters think not in pictures or words, but are good in
recognizing patterns. Pattern thinking is a more abstract form of visual
thinking; thoughts are in patterns instead of photo-realistic pictures.
Pattern thinkers see patterns and relationships between numbers. Some of the
best descriptions are in Daniel Tammet’s book Born on a Blue Day (Tammet 2006)
and in Jerry Newport’s book Mozart and the Whale (Newport et al. 2007). The
weak areas in pattern thinkers is usually reading and writing composition."
[1]

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/07/05/research-
shows...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/07/05/research-shows-three-
distinct-thought-styles-in-people-with-autism/#2f406ae5221e)

------
roenxi
Presumably 'deficient' here is a term of art rather than something pejorative.

Given how poorly people perform at recollecting personally experienced events
- as evidenced by fascinating phenomena like false memories - it seems highly
likely that the memories are not stored in any particularly robust way.

It may well be normal to access memories similarly to watching a film but
there is no reason to believe that is efficient. It is probably a crutch like
sounding words out mentally when reading. The fast way is not going to be the
visual way, in the same way that fast reading is not done verbally.

I have a well developed minds eye, but it normally sees the world more like a
cartoon than a vivid image. Works great for a lot of practical tasks though.
There will be an absurd amount of variation out there.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>Presumably 'deficient' here is a term of art rather than something
pejorative.

"Deficient" means lacking, there is no presumption that lacking is a negative
thing. These three individuals seem to be living normal, productive lives
while being deficient.

~~~
nabla9
Few hours ago there was link to article about quantum supremacy claims and one
person commented how supremacy might be problematic word.

> The usage of the word “supremacy” is probably the primary thing that rubs
> people the wrong way. When I first heard of it myself, it did feel a little
> strange.

What is going on?

~~~
boomboomsubban
Words have multiple meanings, that can often be similar and context matters a
lot. The press often uses this fact to sensationalize stories, while a
scientific community may have a very specific definition in mind when using
those words.

------
echelon
If SRS software has taught me anything, it's that memory is reenforced when
recalled.

If you don't have anyone to talk with and share your memories (or perhaps you
don't find them important enough to think about), you're going to forget them.

I wonder if they found a correlation between introverts and extroverts here.
Because I'd almost certainly peg this phenomenon on that.

------
john_minsk
I just came back from Milan and while I can recollect certain situations and
pictures, by no means I can "play" my memory as if it was happening to me.

Real experience has so much details compared to memory that I always tend to
doubt that my memories are accurate.

On top of that, if you have repetitive schedule I can't imagine you can
recreate specifics of particular day. You probably reconstruct the situation
filling in your image of familiar places with peculiarities of situation you
are trying to remember

------
mhb
Flip side: Total recall: the people who never forget

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/08/total-
recall...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/08/total-recall-the-
people-who-never-forget)

------
oluckyman
I'll add my voice to the chorus that says this is a symptom of a more
fundamental issue: aphantasia. As a card-carrying aphantasiac, I'm skeptical
of the ability of most people to visualize. I recall hearing of an experiment
in which people were asked to draw a bicycle from their imagination. The
results were laughable, yet, no doubt, the subjects would self report that,
sure, they could visualize a bicycle.

------
KirinDave
This acutely describes nearly all of my childhood, up until about age ten.
What little I remmeber vividly is only extremely traumatic stuff: being lost
at Stanford on a game day, physical abuse by a relative, my doctor trying to
explain to me what cancer was, later on a discussion of the surgery I needed,
a corporal punishment episode from a teacher when I was in kindergarten. Other
than things like that, I can barely remember words associated with my home and
schooling and family, let alone images. Until maybe age 10.

I wonder if that's a linked phenomenon. Most people I know do not have a gap
that large in the memory of their early development.

~~~
rriepe
Trauma and abuse are what cause the memory issues. It's well-known in the
cPTSD and narcissism recovery communities.

------
iandanforth
I'd love to have these tests done. I have a friend from college who serves as
my memory of my college experience. She can recall all manner of events and
sequences of events from over a decade ago that I can't even vaguely recall. I
experience memories of the long past as postcards. A few disconnected images
or feelings without sequence or much context. I've always been impressed when
people can remember details of times long past and I've observed almost
everyone is better at it than I am.

------
danbmil99
It would be interesting to analyze these abilities from the viewpoint of
evolutionary adaptation.

Perhaps from the perspective of a band of proto-humans, it was highly adaptive
for _some_ members of the tribe to have strong episodic memories, but not
necessary for everyone.

Similarly, it was probably highly adaptive for a few members to be gifted with
a structured, logical approach to problem-solving. Given the development of
language, the whole tribe benefits from the specialized abilities of various
members.

~~~
foogoloo
Except there no reason to believe one style of memory is more or less related
to being a logical/structured thinker. For example visual thinkers may be
better at geometry by flipping and rotating images around in their head.
Feynman describes solving logical things by reducing them to simple geometric
problems.

------
fizzychicken
I feel like I have bits of my memory and perception that are good and bits
that are bad. I struggle with the idea of being asked to help with a 'photo-
fit', to describe the person's face and reconstruct the features like you
would when describing a suspect to a police officer or sketch artist, I simply
cannot recall anyone's face. I can describe build, height, hair and colour,
but the face itself is blocked in my mind. I cannot recall the majority of
events in my life and most that I do recall are very recent or in some way
traumatic or unpleasant, even then I only remember a freeze-frame of the
scenario and note the whole event. Being able to remember a sequence of events
or a long period of time within the same day is limited to a very small number
of memories. I cannot remember most of my childhood or anything beyond a few
years ago, just tiny snippets here and there. However... I remember nearly
everywhere I've ever been, like a version of map software in my brain is
keeping a record. I've re-visited places I've only been to once before many
years earlier and been able to navigate the entire area without fault. I can
remember the configuration of the shopping malls I've been to and I can even
recall where nearly all products in the local grocery store or super markets
are.... I can picture these things in my mind with real clarity. This ability
also means I have fantastic dreams, often in the same places which only exist
in my mind. I often remember dreams by where I was or what I was doing at the
time based on which location I was in. I dream in first-person while also
aware of what the third person sensation/ experience would be like. I can
occasionally lucid dream so I know these dreams involve colour. I cannot
remember what anything smells, sounds, or tastes like. If someone asked, ‘what
does your favourite food taste like?’ I honestly could not describe it, but I
can recall the texture of it perfectly. Yet even though my few memories do not
include these details, if I smell something during the day I can easily
remember what that is…the same applies to hearing a tune or sound or seeing
someone’s face in a TV show. The memories are there but the act of actually
trying to recall something simply for the purposes of attempting to remember
will result in a blank….passively try and remember something by association of
some other stimuli then the memory will come back easy. I worry that now my
child is turning 3 years old I can only recall a handful of memories from his
life so far, will this get worse? If he ever asks me what life was like when
he was just a baby….what will I say?

------
carapace
Memory is a relative new thing, eh? Before we started civilization (about 12k
years ago) was there much adaptive pressure to have accurate memories of one's
personal history?

As I wrote the above I remembered that many cultures (like in Australia) have
oral histories that go back tens of thousands of years. Hmm...

------
EGreg
As I worked more and more, in isolation especially, time seemed to fly faster
and events seemed less salient. I remember things but not as vividly as when I
was 15.

I hope this isn’t a normal thing that has to do with individual years being
less fractionally important with age, but just the brain adapting to
loneliness.

~~~
rpiguy
The perception of time passing faster with age is well known phenomenon. An
important secondary character in the novel Catch-22 is obsessed with this. I
used to think I was just impatient as a kid when ten minutes felt like
forever. Now having passed 40 I can say that I was actually experiencing time
very differently.

------
encoderer
For most of my life I thought of myself as smart. In my 30s now I’ve realized
I just have an unreasonably good memory, both long term and short term recall.
In other areas of intelligence I’m average.

I would bet that many of those identifying with this study are excelling in
other dimensions of intelligence.

~~~
theonemind
I kind of had the opposite experience. It seemed like I could figure things
out quickly, but not especially remember them. Memory definitely helps, and as
I got older and my brain doesn't seem to work at the same clock speed, memory
helps a lot more and seems easier than figuring things out again all of the
time.

So, I kind of thought of it like a computer. You can sometimes have a look-up
table of pre-computed things, but if you had more processor than memory, you'd
go the other direction and re-compute instead of using memory/storage.

------
hindsightbias
Am grateful I have an autobiographical deficit. I can’t imagine being one of
those people who remembers every slight or bad experience. Think about those
people who are still impacted by something that happened to them in school.

Of course, it could be all that skate boarding w/o a helmet.

------
theonemind
Unless they can pinpoint some underlying structural deficit in the brain, the
title seems to pathologize something rather trivial. I have very low
autobiographical memory because I mostly consider it a silly made up story in
my head and don't pay much attention to it.

------
tiborsaas
This is me all the time when we go out for a few beers :)

------
lonelappde
The article seems to lack a clear definition of what "autobiographical memory"
means.

~~~
JJMcJ
It is a technical term:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiographical_memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiographical_memory)

Usually journal articles expect a certain common knowledge of their readers.

------
callesgg
People thinking they can view movies or don't view movies in their mind seams
a bit strange to me.

The mind works like the mind works. You can describe it in different ways. If
you describe your memories like they are movies often enough you will start to
think of them as movies. But that is not cause they are like movies that is
simply cause you believe they are like movies.

A movie is a movie, a memory is a memory, a picture is a picture,
visualisations in the mind are just that visualisations in the mind noting
more nothing less. You can describe things more or less accurately with
metaphors, but that does not make the thing in to the metaphor you use to
describe it.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I'd guess from your comment that you don't experience visualisations or
memories as movies - but others, like myself, do so. This isn't a postmodern
"I can imagine it like a story, or movie, or song" the memory literally
appears as a movie.

~~~
callesgg
If you experience your memories as a movie it can't have subjective emotions
cause those are not in movies.

With that in mind you might be able to see the perspective that I have here.
You are not experiencing a movie in your head. You just call it a movie cause
that is something familiar that you feel is similar.

A movie is a movie, a memory is a memory.

Things are what they are. One might call things other things but that does not
make them in to that other thing no mater how similar or dissimilar they might
or might not be.

~~~
NateEag
Have you seen Pixar's movie "Inside Out"?

If not, this is irrelevant, but if you have, you will likely recall that the
film's core narrative is about memories.

All those memories are depicted as audiovisual records of events, often
(literally) colored by an emotional overlay.

I think they represented them that way because most or all of the core project
team shared that experience of memory.

~~~
callesgg
I have seen it, it is great movie :)

I am not sure if you are trying to convince me that memories are like movies?

I mean I can describe my memories as movies to, in a way they are like movies
in certain ways.

But they are not movies, they are memories, they have properties that movies
don't have and movies have properties that memories don't have. They share
some properties but that does not make them the same thing.

