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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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I developed what appears to be a photographic memory when I was 16 years old. Does this kind of memory truly exist, and, if so, how did I develop it?
—Peter Gordon, Scotland
Barry Gordon, a professor of neurology and cognitive science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (and no relation), offers an explanation:
The intuitive notion of a “photographic” memory is that it is just like a photograph: you can retrieve it from your memory at will and examine it in detail, zooming in on different parts. But a true photographic memory in this sense has never been proved to exist.
Most of us do have a kind of photographic memory, in that most people's memory for visual material is much better and more detailed than our recall of most other kinds of material. For instance, most of us remember a face much more easily than the name associated with that face. But this isn't really a photographic memory; it just shows us the normal difference between types of memory.
Even visual memories that seem to approach the photographic ideal are far from truly photographic. These memories seem to result from a combination of innate abilities, combined with zealous study and familiarity with the material, such as the Bible or fine art.
Sorry to disappoint further, but even an amazing memory in one domain, such as vision, is not a guarantee of great memory across the board. That must be rare, if it occurs at all. A winner of the memory Olympics, for instance, still had to keep sticky notes on the refrigerator to remember what she had to do during the day.
So how does an exceptional, perhaps photographic, memory come to be? It depends on a slew of factors, including our genetics, brain development and experiences. It is difficult to disentangle memory abilities that appear early from those cultivated through interest and training. Most people who have exhibited truly extraordinary memories in some domain have seemed to possess them all their lives and honed them further through practice.
Various parts of the brain mature at different times, and adolescence is a major time for such changes. It's possible Mr. Gordon's ability took a big jump around his 16th birthday, but it's also possible he noticed it only then. Mr. Gordon might want to have formal testing, to see just how good his memory is and in what areas. Then we can debate the nature-nurture question from harder evidence.
This article was originally published with the title I developed what appears to be a photographic memory when I was 16 years old. Does this kind of memory truly exist, and, if so, how did I develop it?.
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Add CommentThe Nature/Nurture and Hardware/Software dichotomies are equivalent
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll computing systems must have separate hardware and software systems – to work properly you must have both working together. Software means information in memory, so if you have any memory in the system during normal behavior, you must have software inside. In some systems people don’t realize they have a memory, in others people don’t realize they have software.
Software is not made of the memory system hardware – it’s made of pure information. Software is the stuff that solves problems, generates complex behaviors, and is in control. Without it there is no intelligent behavior at all. Software is the native substance of mind.
In animals, we call the hardware part of the computing system a brain. That biological hardware is the Nature part of the discussion. The software part of the computing system is called a mind. That psychological software is the Nurture part of the discussion.
A mind is just a piece of software that exists on the hardware memory system of your cortex.
jsweck, you wrote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The Nature/Nurture and Hardware/Software dichotomies are equivalent.
"All computing systems must have separate hardware and software systems – to work properly you must have both working together...
"Software is not made of the memory system hardware – it’s made of pure information...
"A mind is just a piece of software that exists on the hardware memory system of your cortex."
The human brain/silicon computer metaphor is wrong.
The brain's architecture is a 3D grid of neurons that "allows for continuous re-wiring"
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=brains-nerves-found-to-line-up
Our minds are softwired into our brains' topology, reprogramming themselves on the fly all our lives.
It is so true about visual memories being dominant. All my life I have written things down so I can go back in my memory and look at a "piece of paper" in my memory and "read" what I wrote. It isn't perfect, but it absolutely doesn't happen if I just "hear" something. I cannot go back in my memory and re-hear what was said etc, at least no where as easily. Also, I did this long before I was cognizant of what I was doing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPercival, if I understand you, you’re saying that mind emerges from complicated hardware, and that it emerges from the interconnection of neurons. This is a bit like an electrical engineer thinking his logic gate interconnection scheme has caused the emergence of complex behaviors in the system – and then he discovers the idea of software, and realizes what is really in charge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the computing world, hardware never determines behavior. You never get mind-like things from the hardware in operation. It doesn’t matter what you do with the hardware, it doesn’t matter how you architect it, arrange it, or maintain it. Only software can be a mind. This is why freshly constructed computers and newborns can’t solve any problems. It has nothing to do with neurons or brain subsystems; it takes years for humans to accumulate the mind software that’s required for normal operation.
@JSWECK I agree with your nature/nurture hardware/software comparisons to extent. I imagine the limitations of each can help us explain both. But the brain is solving "problems" the day it's created. The brain has built in biases which allow for faster problem solving. The brain can recognize patterns (Such as a face) faster than a computer. Mainly because the mind is really good at assuming information that in reality may not be there. (Which causes the phenomena of illusions) Another example, people are born with the ability of language\grammar. (Born with software) Much like how a computer is "born" only being able to communicate via binary. (that's a hardware limitation) And both the baby and computer eventually become more complex via abstract language and programmed ACSII to work in it's particular environment and it adds on from there. (See Blank Slate and the Language Instinct by Steven Pinker)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI remember a story my Anatomy professor, Dr. Martin, relayed to our class during the summer of 1994. The book we were using (& perhaps not so coincidentally) was written by a college roommate of his at the University of Illinois, who upon their initially meeting each other, had claimed to have a photographic memory. To test that claim, Dr. Martin selected a random and lengthy passage in a book and asked his roommate to read it. After taking the book away from his roommate, Dr. Martin asked him to repeat word for word what he had just read. And he could. That is a photographic memory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's a sharp short-term memory. True photographic (or more technically correct, eidetic) memory has never been shown to exist save for one example that has not been replicated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrian, yes, I agree we are problem solving machines. But it’s always the software does the problem solving (this is why we learn, or why we program a computer with the solution). You can optimize the hardware to run faster for certain kinds of problems (so the system can run in real-time), but you still must use software to solve the actual problem. There is no super-hardware that solves problems – that’s what software does.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe software in our minds is all learned – there is nothing that is constant and hard-coded (it’s not like a book or the genome). This is a great feature because it allows us to build a kind of software mirror of the world in our heads that perceives the universe. This world of virtual objects is constructed fresh with each person, and tunes that person to their own reality. When you say "I perceive the world" you mean your software.
I’m also trying to get across that when there is a software system in play, you get some pretty complex behaviors, even when you have only a few bits of memory.
jsweck, you wrote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The software in our minds is all learned – there is nothing that is constant and hard-coded..."
This is simply false. Much processing goes on in our brains that is "hard-coded" and that exists at birth. For instance, brian1625 pointed out our ability to recognize faces as faces. That capacity is indeed hardwired into the fusiform gyrus; we don't have to learn to do it.
We recognize, differentiate between, and enjoy different kinds of music while still in the womb. We don't have to learn that either. Infants have a limited problem-solving capacity, but then the ranges of problems they have to solve is also limited.
You wrote:
"You never get mind-like things from the hardware in operation."
But we do, you see, in the case of collections of neurons interconnected as in our ganglia and brains.
Neural networks simply do not operate like digital computers do. From spinal reflex arcs to facial recognition wetware, our software and hardware are the same things. Our behaviors are exactly determined by our hardware and its ability to rewire itself on the fly, something digital computing machinery currently can't do.
I get that you're something of an expert in the computing world, possibly a researcher in artificial intelligence. Please take a good hard look at some of the current research into biological intelligence; you're still looking at it through silicon-tinted glasses so to speak.
If you insist on looking at our brains as computers and our minds as software, ask yourself when the operating system gets loaded and booted.
@jafrates: thanks for the correction/clarification.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPercival,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMinds are not about processing (although some is required), they are about software. The software system is the entity that embodies the solution to any significant problem the system runs into. Yes, all systems have hardware automation like reflexes, but don’t mistake that hardware for a mind in operation. The purpose of reflexes is to give the system simple inflexible behaviors, with the intent of bootstrapping or maintaining the organism. Once the software is running, it handles all significant problems.
It takes years for mammals get their software. We call that process “learning”. Learning just means you are accumulating software. There is no operating system in your mind software. It simply accumulates from birth to death. At birth you have no mind, and at death you have your best mind.
All of your experiences are stored in memory – they are software. Your knowledge, personality (strategies for social interaction) is stored in memory too, so that is software as well. Your habits are stored in memory so they are software, etc. The entire psychological world revolves are around the world of memory. Could it be that the memory hardware contains a software system?
Software and hardware are never the same thing. The software is always the contents of the memory, not the memory system itself. Why are so many systems architected as information links connecting a memory box to the world? Could there be that there’s software in the box? Is this software the entire point of building the computational system?
Hardware rewiring may be the basis of some sort of maintenance, but it has nothing to do with the software system. When you go to a doctor (a human hardware maintainer) and you ask him about a delusion (a belief error), there are no neurons to fix. He will send you to a psychologist (a human software maintainer). Delusions are software errors.
Percival,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMinds are not about processing (although some is required), they are about software. The software system is the entity that embodies the solution to any significant problem the system runs into. Yes, all systems have hardware automation like reflexes, but don’t mistake that hardware for a mind in operation. The purpose of reflexes is to give the system simple inflexible behaviors, with the intent of bootstrapping or maintaining the organism. Once the software is running, it handles all significant problems.
It takes years for mammals get their software. We call that process “learning”. Learning just means you are accumulating software. There is no operating system in your mind software. It simply accumulates from birth to death. At birth you have no mind, and at death you have your best mind.
All of your experiences are stored in memory – they are software. Your knowledge, personality (strategies for social interaction) is stored in memory too, so that is software as well. Your habits are stored in memory so they are software, etc. The entire psychological world revolves are around the world of memory. Could it be that the memory hardware contains a software system?
Software and hardware are never the same thing. The software is always the contents of the memory, not the memory system itself. Why are so many systems architected as information links connecting a memory box to the world? Could there be software in the box? Is this software the entire point of building the computational system?
Rewiring neurons may be the basis of some sort of hardware maintenance, but it has nothing to do with the software system. When you go to a doctor (a human hardware maintainer) and you ask him about a delusion (a belief error), there are no neurons to fix. He will send you to a psychologist (a human software maintainer) that will traverse the person’s software system. Delusions are software errors.
The assumption that what is not learned must be hard-wired, is a grave error. It misses a very important point raised by Schneirla's School in Behavior, which stresses that learning is only one way out of many, in which the environment can affect the ontogeny of behavior (invariably under inseparable effects of both nature & nurture)!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRuth, what I mean by a mind is the software (learned) subset of the system's behavior.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIndeed, I thought so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou seem, however, to assume that what is not learned, must be hardwired, i.e. due only to nature (genes). My comment was intended to point out that this basic assumption is in error!
Ruth, why don't you supply an example, so I know what you mean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a computer scientist and software developer with a history that spans machine code and microcomputer design through VB.Net and C#, I can assure you that your analogy is very superficial. The original computer "software" was actually mechanical and not software at all. Then we moved to ROM memory which was not alterable at all and was essentially hardware based. Eventually computers became sophisticated enough that the operating system and applications were truly abstracted from the hardware.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat abstraction still does not equate to human learning due primarily to the fact that computers don't learn. Computers can have new or updated software but that isn't really learning. Supposed learning within a software package is simply refining decision sets within existing command sets.
If a person learns French it is easier for them to learn Spanish. With a computer that you install a French language interface on, it does not have any impact on installing the Spanish interface.
As for hardware not limiting software, that one is so easy to refute that it is hardly worth the time. I'm going to refute anyway because that is my nature. Install Windows 8 on an old 8086 PC. You can't because the hardware limits capacity.
Bucket, first let’s define the term “software”. Software means the “information in memory” – it’s the contents of the memory, not the memory system (which is part of the hardware). Software does not mean the memory system itself, nor does it extend structurally from the hardware of the system. The software and hardware systems are decoupled run independently. Software engineers, for instance never need to consult with electrical engineers when constructing their software objects - those objects are always 100% software (you never see for instance, 50% device driver and 50% NAND gates). Software is never made of hardware of any type – it is made of pure information. The software system creates its own structure to solve problems. It doesn't somehow borrow that structure from the hardware. This structure creation aspect works so well that people can create entire artificial worlds using it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf your cortex is a memory system, it must have informational contents – it must have software. It doesn't matter that mind software is lot better than the stuff people design, the important thing is that there’s a vast software system in play. Any software system is the source of intelligence in the system.
Glad I am still seeing the colors of the lights and not print.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy has this discussion not included any mention of the well-documented cases of Hyperthymesia?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo muddy waters further, what about superior autobiographical memory? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120730170341.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIdentical twins separated at birth and, as a result, consequently develop entirely different _software_ because of different life experiences and memories still have amazingly similar life outcomes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are not a tabula rasa at birth simply waiting to be programmed.
You overlook the fact that we do not start developing at birth (when we become easier to see), but at conception!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me give an example of software’s effect in a different situation. In biology there are cells, DNA, and genomes. The genome controls most cellular structures and processes. It acts like a little factory manager at the cellular level with its little informational fingers guiding everything. The genome is information stored in DNA memory hardware. It’s a software system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs explained by Terrance Decon in “The Symbolic Species,” there are specific levels of memory referred to as “Iconic, Indexical, Symbolic, and Associative.” The Iconic level is comprised of collections of features, those collections that are similar wind their way through the gated network to become organized in proximity to one another (indexical), when we assign a descriptive term to an indexical memory, it becomes symbolically linked and once symbolically linked, the symbolic level can link to other memories which are similar from past experiences. Primed, either by sensory input or internally generated thought patterns, those collections of features can get played back through the process of re-entry (Edelman) to produce recall. Understanding and comprehension occurs as the result of extension through the associative cortex to corresponding experiences from the past. That extension providing through the associative cortex provides depth and meaning. Networks devoted to comparison (top down-bottom up - when actively stimulate by sensory resources) determine the degree of similarity between exiting memories and the experience of the moment – also providing a mechanism for both discrimination and analogical reasoning. Attention and focus provide for long term potentiation and the establishment of new and novel memories.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo analogy is perfect. While they can be useful to quickly get a general idea of a new (to you) concept, they will hamper complete understanding if relied on extensively. Firmware in the form of a ROM chip loaded with software can be included as part of hardware necessary to even minimal functionality. I cannot think of a biological equivalent.
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