Introduction
Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) or Hyperthymesia is a syndrome in which a person remembers a high amount of information about their own life with amazing accuracy. With this personality syndrome, it is common to focus on constant reflections on one’s past and recall detailed descriptions of any moment of one’s life (LePort et al., 2017). As of 2014, LePort et al. (2017) identified about 50 people with hyperthymesia by examining hundreds of referrals (LePort et al., 2017). Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory is an object of interest for doctors, psychologists, and scientists and attracts writers and writers. Such cases are often used in popular culture, as they describe an unusual phenomenon for human memory and consciousness. One of the most famous works in the literature on this subject is the short story “Funes the Memorious” by Jorge Luis Borges, which has both authentic and fictional elements of the clinical picture of hyperthymesia.
“Funes the Memorious” is an example of a Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory
In the short story “Funes the Memorious,” Borges describes meeting Ireneo Funnes, an Uruguay teenager with exceptional cognitive abilities. He remembers with precision almost every day of his life; in a few days, he masters Latin perfectly, memorizes many scientific facts, and also entertains himself with strange mental projects (Borges). The author talks to the main character about his projects, marveling at how a brilliant teenager is doomed to waste his intellectual abilities.
In the story, Borges describes the case of HSAM, especially vividly presented when Funes describes his autobiographical memories. He talks about the experience of falling from a horse, describing the minor details of the incident – the shape of the clouds, the horse’s mane, and all the physical sensations of the moment in great detail (Borges). This is consistent with the clinical picture of HSAM, as the people studied accurately described every day of their lives and spoke out the range of physical senses and emotions they experienced (Mazzoni et al., 2019). People with hyperthymesia are characterized by an increased concentration on their physical and psychological experiences.
“Funes the Memorious”: Implausible Aspects
“Funes the Memorious” also has unreliable aspects in the description of HSAM, primarily in the fact that Borges mixes episodic and semantic memory. People with HSAM are characterized by the activation of episodic memory, which is responsible for remembering episodes from life, dates, events, and relationships (Rubin, 2022). However, Funes demonstrates photographic semantic memory, which is responsible for language use and other mental abilities (Rubin, 2022). The existence of highly superior semantic memory needs to be scientifically proven (Rubin, 2022). Moreover, such manifestations are not associated with HSAM but with other mental disorders on the autism spectrum, such as savant syndrome. Thus, Borges attributed symptoms to HSAM that are not characteristic of this condition, mixing two types of memory that work on different principles.
The Benefits of Forgetting
The idea of having a perfect memory, higher cognitive abilities, and memorization skills is considered attractive to many people in today’s culture. There are various mnemonic techniques and courses that teach people to memorize more effectively. However, the ability to forget is normal for the human brain and essential (Murphy & Castel, 2021). Forgetting was previously considered in medicine to be a passive process that does not bring any benefit to the person and is even a sign of the gradual development of cognitive diseases (Murphy & Castel, 2021). However, research in recent decades has found that routine, non-pathological forgetting is an active process that brings many benefits to the human brain.
Research points to a number of advantages of forgetting, a process that is especially necessary in today’s information world. First, forgetting allows people to use their brains more efficiently by discarding useless data and making it easier to access the information they need (Baddeley et al., 2020). This allows for prioritizing and focusing on essential goals, activates the creativity of the brain, and reduces the symptoms of attention deficit disorder (ADHD), which are beginning to show in more people in the modern world (Mazzoni et al., 2019). Second, specific conditions such as hyperthymesia correlate with various psychological illnesses, including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic, and obsessive-compulsive disorders (Mazzoni et al., 2019). This is not surprising, given that people with HSAM constantly relive difficult and negative memories as if they happened yesterday.
Conclusion
Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory or Hyperthymesia is a syndrome rarely encountered in medicine, characterized by hypertrophied episodic memory abilities. A person with HSAM can accurately and in detail remember each day’s events, including their own physical and emotional experiences. This syndrome does not affect semantic memory in any way and does not usually help to acquire cognitive skills faster than others. Borges’ short story “Funes the Memorious” describes a protagonist with a condition similar to or overlapping with HSAM. However, his description does not fully correlate with hyperthymesia since the author gives the hero increased abilities in the field of semantic memory, which does not happen with HSAM.
References
Baddeley, A., Eyenck, M. W. & Anderson, M. C. (2020). Memory. Routledge.
Borges, J. L. (n.d.). Funes the Memorious.
LePort, A. K., Stark, S. M., McGaugh, J. L., & Stark, C. E. (2017). A cognitive assessment of highly superior autobiographical memory. Memory, 25(2), 276–288.
Mazzoni, G., Clark, A., De Bartolo, A., Guerrini, C., Nahouli, Z., Duzzi, D., Marco, M. D., McGeown, W. & Venneri, A. (2019). Brain activation in highly superior autobiographical memory: The role of the precuneus in the autobiographical memory retrieval network. Cortex, 120, 588-602.
Murphy, D. H., & Castel, A. D. (2021). Responsible for remembering and forgetting as contributors to memory for important information. Memory & Cognition, 49(5), 895-911.
Rubin, D. C. (2022). A conceptual space for episodic and semantic memory. Memory & Cognition, 50(3), 464–477.