Advertisement. 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. read more
First you have to define what you mean by " photographic memory." There are people with very good memory, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily visual (as" photographic" implies), and it doesn't mean they can remember everything, forever more. read more
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. read more
Photographic memory is often confused with another bizarre—but real—perceptual phenomenon called eidetic memory, which occurs in between 2 and 15 percent of children and very rarely in adults. An eidetic image is essentially a vivid afterimage that lingers in the mind's eye for up to a few minutes before fading away. read more