A highly superior memoryA highly superior memory
All In The Mind
If you were given a date from the last five years could you say what day of the week it was? One young woman in Australia can remember every single day of her life since she was born. We hear about her life and the research she’s involved with—as a single participant.
28:52•21 Apr 2019
A Mind That Remembers Every Day: Inside Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory
Episode Overview
- HSAM involves an exceptional ability to recall personal experiences and dates across a lifetime, while other cognitive skills can remain in the average range.
- For Becky Sharrock, memories bring back intense emotions and even physical sensations, which can be both pleasurable and distressing.
- OCD, anxiety and repeated rumination on events may strengthen autobiographical memories, and are being studied as possible contributors to HSAM.
- Brain imaging and detailed testing suggest subtle differences in memory-related networks, offering clues that may help shape dementia interventions based on reminiscence.
- Becky is learning to see her memory as “half a blessing, half a curse” and channels it into writing an autobiography despite the emotional strain of re-living her past.
“Emotions attached to memories, that's what makes them most difficult, because the memory itself is just a file you go over.”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head-on against addiction? Here, the focus shifts to a different kind of mind-bending story: an Australian woman who remembers every single day of her life. All In The Mind zooms in on Becky Sharrock, who has highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM). Becky recalls detailed scenes from when she was just 12 days old, right through to her 28th birthday and beyond.
She casually matches dates to days of the week and events, and can identify exact Harry Potter chapters from just a few opening lines. As she puts it, "Emotions attached to memories, that's what makes them most difficult," giving you a glimpse of how intense such recall can be. Host Lynne Malcolm chats with Becky and neuropsychologist Associate Professor Gail Robinson from The University of Queensland.
Together they sketch out what HSAM is – an exceptional memory for personal events – and what it’s not. Standard intelligence and other cognitive abilities sit in the average range, so something very specific is going on with autobiographical memory. You’ll hear how HSAM interacts with Becky’s diagnoses of obsessive–compulsive disorder and autism, and why researchers are curious about the links between anxiety, rumination and memory strength.
Gail explains current theories, from richer sensory and emotional encoding to possible brain-structure differences, and why a single case like Becky’s might inform future approaches to dementia and memory loss. It’s not all party tricks. Becky describes the exhaustion, headaches and insomnia that come with an endlessly busy mind, as well as the distress of re-feeling old emotional and even physical pain.
Yet she’s also learning to see her memory as “half a blessing, half a curse” and is writing an autobiography that revisits every stage of her life. If you’ve ever wished you could remember more, this conversation might make you ask: how much memory would actually be enough for you?
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