6 ms·

His memory has always been laughably impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNVJFRl6f6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNVJFRl6f6s

beebmam 8y ago
Wow, this IS truly incredible. This reminds me of how many chess grandmasters can easily recall and recite and visualize every move in a game from years past. I think James deserves a little more credit than just being on par with chess GMs: to memorize something so complex as a basketball game without even attempting to commit it to memory speaks to his extraordinary intelligence.
- vertline3 8y ago
  Steve Kerr said it's common for players at the top, said Draymond was the same way. I imagine Jordan as well. Did LeBron’s memory of the fourth quarter surprise you? Kerr: “Not for a great player. I think great players remember everything. It’s like a quarterback.” Your guys do? Kerr: “Yeah. Not all of them [laughs]. Draymond would be the same way. “We’ll be watching tape of a game from, we played Houston in December or something, and guys will be like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that. This is what happened next.’ “So I don’t think it’s that rare. But the best players generally remember the most and have the sharpest memories.
  - asimpletune 8y ago
    Draymond is known for also being a very smart player.
- fenomas 8y ago
  You probably already know this, but of course the companion trivia there is that chess masters' incredible recall for board positions only works for realistic layouts - when tested on randomly placed pieces, masters apparently remember them no better than beginners. If basketball is analogous, one could suppose that (A) there may not be anything special about LeBron's memory per se - e.g. he might remember the plays in a cricket match as poorly as anyone else - and (B) it argues that on the court LeBron is thinking out the game, and the implications of each exchange, in a way comparable to how chess masters think out moves (and he probably puts similar mental effort into the other pursuits the article describes).
  - FPGAhacker 8y ago
    I have heard, though no citations, a psychologist or two on podcasts say that memories as we commonly understand them are reconstructions from fragments and snapshots. If one accepts that hypothesis then it would make sense that you can reconstruct more accurately things that behave according to a fixed and small set of rules that you understand thoroughly and intuitively. *small relative to the universe of rules outside of things like chess and basketball.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    While true, there are also stories about LeBron having remarkable memory for non-basketball-related details, like remembering the color of the shirt a journalist was wearing the first time they met several years ago.
  - jmulho 8y ago
    This is presumably because the chess master understands the position. I see three pawns, a king, a rook, and a knight. The chess master sees a castled king. I see 30 pieces all over the board. The master sees the Sicilian Dragon Harrington-Glek variation. I have no idea what happened next. I see eight candidate moves. The master sees three but knows that only one will make this particular opponent uncomfortable. With this level of understanding, it is way easier for the master to remember the game.
    - jimbokun 8y ago
      It's like a compression algorithm, eliminating redundant details.
jl2718 8y ago
I’ve noticed a strong tendency toward eidetic memory in people that started in their professions without going to college. Very common in enlisted military, for instance. I think it might actually be quite natural. Education, I think, overloads a person with all of this useless stuff to make them ‘well-rounded’ and they lose their ability to focus on the details.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  Learning makes people stupid is a very strange thesis with zero support. It seems more likely that you have no idea what the instance of eidetic memory in either population, that memory doesn't work like that at all, and that small handful of anecdotes is leading to a spurious connection.
  - pitt1980 8y ago
    this seems overly hostile to what appears to be a hypothesis the idea that what we're trained to notice changes what we perceive, doesn't strike me as strange thesis at all I'm reminded of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
    - michaelmrose 8y ago
      Our brains are trained to find patterns. Prove it is a perfectly valid response to what appears to be a spurious one.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  The other commenter's reply is a tad aggressively stated but I agree with it. I think your conclusion is probably skewed by survivorship bias. When I began my career I didn't have any college experience and I have a fairly exceptional working and long term memory (as measured by an IQ test and other peoples' remarks on my work). As an example, I can typically recite most lines of dialogue from a TV show verbatim in order after watching the episode once. That does come in handy for professional work. However, I happen to know many people without any college education, and most do not have a particularly good memory; they don't have a particularly bad memory either, just sort of middling. So trading one set of anecdotes for another: I don't see support for your hypothesis. I think it's plausible that professionally successful people without college education tend to have a better memory, perhaps because they need to in order to compensate for lack of formal education. But even that is unsubstantiated. We probably can't draw any meaningful inferences from the n = 1 example of one of the most successful basketball players of all time. Many of Lebron James' qualities - both mental and physical - are likely several sigma from the mean.
maxxxxx 8y ago
I have heard the same about the top Formula One Drivers. After the race they can recall almost every turn of the race in detail with their engineers. It takes hours to get all the information across. It makes sense that a good memory is big asset for an athlete. It allows them to replay a situation and learn from it. When I did martial arts my memory of a fight was pretty vague so I couldn't analyze and learn much.
- prmph 8y ago
  I've noticed this ability as well in other fields: it seems those at the very top (chess grandmasters, piano virtuosos, etc) have an incredible ability to remember the details of performances in their field. The question is: is it their existing recall abilities that (in part) helps them to get to the top, or is it the process of becoming that good that greatly enhances their memory?
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I wonder if it's a function of being able to focus.
  - loblollyboy 8y ago
    Yup - here is a cool one about how baseball players scan things with their eyes https://source.wustl.edu/2006/08/st-louis-cardinals-slugger-pujols-gets-babe-ruth-test-at-washington-university/ https://source.wustl.edu/2006/08/st-louis-cardinals-slugger-...
  - ehaliewicz2 8y ago
    I'm sure a large part of it is improving your memory, but the very best in the world probably had some advantage to start off with. For example, if you start off learning a language, there are all kinds of tiny details to pronunciation that you don't even recognize and could never recall afterwards. If you try to repeat what someone's said, you might miss a lot of those details. But if you've become fluent at a native (or near-native) level, you've trained your brain to subconsciously recognize and focus on all of those details and can recite something that someone's said perfectly.
jimbokun 8y ago
Almost as laughably unimpressive is the vapidity of the next question asked, something like "down after one game, how concerned are you?" Um, 7? 6? 14? I think coaches and athletes don't necessarily get upset about having to answer questions per se. I think a lot of times they are upset that the people writing about their sport have so little knowledge or curiosity about it. Zach Lowe, as a counterexample, seems to get a lot of interesting answers out of players and coaches because he makes good observations and thus can actually ask interesting questions.

beebmam 8y ago

Wow, this IS truly incredible. This reminds me of how many chess grandmasters can easily recall and recite and visualize every move in a game from years past. I think James deserves a little more credit than just being on par with chess GMs: to memorize something so complex as a basketball game without even attempting to commit it to memory speaks to his extraordinary intelligence.

vertline3 8y ago
Steve Kerr said it's common for players at the top, said Draymond was the same way. I imagine Jordan as well. Did LeBron’s memory of the fourth quarter surprise you? Kerr: “Not for a great player. I think great players remember everything. It’s like a quarterback.” Your guys do? Kerr: “Yeah. Not all of them [laughs]. Draymond would be the same way. “We’ll be watching tape of a game from, we played Houston in December or something, and guys will be like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that. This is what happened next.’ “So I don’t think it’s that rare. But the best players generally remember the most and have the sharpest memories.
- asimpletune 8y ago
  Draymond is known for also being a very smart player.
fenomas 8y ago
You probably already know this, but of course the companion trivia there is that chess masters' incredible recall for board positions only works for realistic layouts - when tested on randomly placed pieces, masters apparently remember them no better than beginners. If basketball is analogous, one could suppose that (A) there may not be anything special about LeBron's memory per se - e.g. he might remember the plays in a cricket match as poorly as anyone else - and (B) it argues that on the court LeBron is thinking out the game, and the implications of each exchange, in a way comparable to how chess masters think out moves (and he probably puts similar mental effort into the other pursuits the article describes).
- FPGAhacker 8y ago
  I have heard, though no citations, a psychologist or two on podcasts say that memories as we commonly understand them are reconstructions from fragments and snapshots. If one accepts that hypothesis then it would make sense that you can reconstruct more accurately things that behave according to a fixed and small set of rules that you understand thoroughly and intuitively. *small relative to the universe of rules outside of things like chess and basketball.
- philwelch 8y ago
  While true, there are also stories about LeBron having remarkable memory for non-basketball-related details, like remembering the color of the shirt a journalist was wearing the first time they met several years ago.
- jmulho 8y ago
  This is presumably because the chess master understands the position. I see three pawns, a king, a rook, and a knight. The chess master sees a castled king. I see 30 pieces all over the board. The master sees the Sicilian Dragon Harrington-Glek variation. I have no idea what happened next. I see eight candidate moves. The master sees three but knows that only one will make this particular opponent uncomfortable. With this level of understanding, it is way easier for the master to remember the game.
  - jimbokun 8y ago
    It's like a compression algorithm, eliminating redundant details.

jl2718 8y ago

I’ve noticed a strong tendency toward eidetic memory in people that started in their professions without going to college. Very common in enlisted military, for instance. I think it might actually be quite natural. Education, I think, overloads a person with all of this useless stuff to make them ‘well-rounded’ and they lose their ability to focus on the details.

michaelmrose 8y ago
Learning makes people stupid is a very strange thesis with zero support. It seems more likely that you have no idea what the instance of eidetic memory in either population, that memory doesn't work like that at all, and that small handful of anecdotes is leading to a spurious connection.
- pitt1980 8y ago
  this seems overly hostile to what appears to be a hypothesis the idea that what we're trained to notice changes what we perceive, doesn't strike me as strange thesis at all I'm reminded of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    Our brains are trained to find patterns. Prove it is a perfectly valid response to what appears to be a spurious one.
throwawaymath 8y ago
The other commenter's reply is a tad aggressively stated but I agree with it. I think your conclusion is probably skewed by survivorship bias. When I began my career I didn't have any college experience and I have a fairly exceptional working and long term memory (as measured by an IQ test and other peoples' remarks on my work). As an example, I can typically recite most lines of dialogue from a TV show verbatim in order after watching the episode once. That does come in handy for professional work. However, I happen to know many people without any college education, and most do not have a particularly good memory; they don't have a particularly bad memory either, just sort of middling. So trading one set of anecdotes for another: I don't see support for your hypothesis. I think it's plausible that professionally successful people without college education tend to have a better memory, perhaps because they need to in order to compensate for lack of formal education. But even that is unsubstantiated. We probably can't draw any meaningful inferences from the n = 1 example of one of the most successful basketball players of all time. Many of Lebron James' qualities - both mental and physical - are likely several sigma from the mean.

maxxxxx 8y ago

I have heard the same about the top Formula One Drivers. After the race they can recall almost every turn of the race in detail with their engineers. It takes hours to get all the information across. It makes sense that a good memory is big asset for an athlete. It allows them to replay a situation and learn from it. When I did martial arts my memory of a fight was pretty vague so I couldn't analyze and learn much.

prmph 8y ago
I've noticed this ability as well in other fields: it seems those at the very top (chess grandmasters, piano virtuosos, etc) have an incredible ability to remember the details of performances in their field. The question is: is it their existing recall abilities that (in part) helps them to get to the top, or is it the process of becoming that good that greatly enhances their memory?
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I wonder if it's a function of being able to focus.
- loblollyboy 8y ago
  Yup - here is a cool one about how baseball players scan things with their eyes https://source.wustl.edu/2006/08/st-louis-cardinals-slugger-pujols-gets-babe-ruth-test-at-washington-university/ https://source.wustl.edu/2006/08/st-louis-cardinals-slugger-...
- ehaliewicz2 8y ago
  I'm sure a large part of it is improving your memory, but the very best in the world probably had some advantage to start off with. For example, if you start off learning a language, there are all kinds of tiny details to pronunciation that you don't even recognize and could never recall afterwards. If you try to repeat what someone's said, you might miss a lot of those details. But if you've become fluent at a native (or near-native) level, you've trained your brain to subconsciously recognize and focus on all of those details and can recite something that someone's said perfectly.

jimbokun 8y ago

Almost as laughably unimpressive is the vapidity of the next question asked, something like "down after one game, how concerned are you?" Um, 7? 6? 14? I think coaches and athletes don't necessarily get upset about having to answer questions per se. I think a lot of times they are upset that the people writing about their sport have so little knowledge or curiosity about it. Zach Lowe, as a counterexample, seems to get a lot of interesting answers out of players and coaches because he makes good observations and thus can actually ask interesting questions.