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I feel like I have this. Can’t remember anything from the past, but my spouse remembers exactly every tiny detail from years ago.

JaimeThompson 4y ago
Are you able to form mental images in your head? I'm wondering if people who can't have more trouble with such things.
- warp 4y ago
  There is a study here which looks at that: https://t.co/xYJvPJRUCj https://t.co/xYJvPJRUCj ( "Memories with a blind mind: Remembering the past and imagining the future with aphantasia"). I assume I have aphantasia, and I have bad episodic memory -- so to me linking the two makes sense. However, I don't remember (hah!) if the study linked above was able to establish that link as well.
- InvaderFizz 4y ago
  Not GP, but I experience the same thing. Wife remembers everything, I only remember extremely significant events, and not that much about the fine details. My capability for creating visual scenes is great, I really enjoy books because of the vivid scenes they paint in my mind. My visual memory of events is often literally fuzzy and in the third person(out of body, spectating myself in the scene).
- haswell 4y ago
  I am aphantasic, and have virtually zero memory of my past beyond a few fragments here and there. I’ve often wondered if the two are connected.
  - v64 4y ago
    To offer a counterexample, I have aphantasia, but have very detailed memories of my childhood. I have no problem recalling details like the full names of all my elementary school teachers, when I met most of my friends in school, and details about field trips we took. That being said, I only have visual aphantasia, so it may be that remembering these peoples' voices or what places smelled and sounded like may be helping those memories. I dated someone without aphantasia who was amazed at my childhood recall compared to her own. It turned out she later discovered she had SDAM.
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  I have a very vivid imagination (and utilize it professionally), but my time/date/name recollection is quite poor. I also score quite high on imagistic/spatial thinking, fwiw.
- driggs 4y ago
  I believe that deficiencies in Episodic Memory can be related to Aphantasia. My hypothesis is that when people with high mental image visualization recall an event, they are re-experiencing it in a sense, and therefore reinforcing its details (or details as remembered, at least!). A person with aphantasia recalling that event does not re-experience it in a way that triggers this feedback loop, not as efficiently or completely at least. I have very detailed memory about facts, places that I've been and seen, including spatial models; but how many times I've visited a place, who I was with on which trip, which events occurred on which visit, these details quickly become obscured and lost.
  - towaway15463 4y ago
    From personal experience, I don’t think aphantasia and lack of episodic memory are related. I have a poor memory for personal experiences as far as what was said or how I felt and often don’t remember things from a first person view but I have very strong visual mental imagery and spatial reasoning. This results in most of my memories of experiences being 3rd person or “fly through” where I can clearly picture the environment I was in, the people who were there, and myself but seen from other perspectives as if observing a scene. I realize that my memory of all the details isn’t perfect and that they are largely filled in by my prior knowledge or even imagination but it is still accurate enough for the important things. It’s not very useful though and I often wish I could remember what people say or even what I said.
    - driggs 4y ago
      If you have "very strong visual mental imagery", then by definition you have no personal experience with aphantasia.
      - towaway15463 4y ago
        Yeah I was saying I didn’t but I also don’t have good episodic memory so my point was that they aren’t directly connected at least for me.
- pitaj 4y ago
  As a counterexample: I have good mental image capabilities, but have a terrible episodic memory.
swayvil 4y ago
Same here. She remembers all this stuff over decades. I can barely remember last week. Sometimes I wonder if there's something up with my brain. Yes, I am actually pretty good at other brain stuff. Software and design and such. Good at concentration. And there's that "absent minded professor" archetype to consider. On the third hand, working outside in this heat can bake the brains right out of your head.
- lazide 4y ago
  Personally, I’ve noticed I’ll cycle between something like this (absent minded professor) and very aware with a good memory of events, times, and sequences. For me, it’s largely based on type of mental load, anxiety, and degree of rest and exercise. Low stress, mental load low and mostly oriented towards people, and good diet and exercise and I’ll be able to remember almost every moment and recall and integrate it into a coherent narrative quite easily. Mental load high and focused on abstract deep concepts? Higher anxiety? Less exercise and not as good nutrition? Where am I, and who are you?
- dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y ago
  > Sometimes I wonder if there's something up with my brain. Yea it's called being a man. Biologically speaking men statistically have far fewer connections between the two halves of their brain. Your wife basically has a gigabit link between her two halves while you're on 56k, which contributes to the intensity of her integrated story-telling experience. On one hand this often gives women better recall, but it also generally enables men to ignore intense experiences better (i.e. easier to block out the cross-chatter) and soldier forward. > Yes, I am actually pretty good at other brain stuff. The results establish that male brains are optimized for intrahemispheric and female brains for interhemispheric communication. -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896179/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896179/
Foobar8568 4y ago
Basically the same, maybe with a twist, I feel that my brain is optimizing my memory for my current "activities". I can recollect anything related to my current jobs, up to 15years ago might be still recallable, but anything else will be just bribe of information. And no need to ask me the name of my best friends/girl friends etc during my teenagehood -earlier, just blank.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
layer8 4y ago
This may be related to how much you have communicated with others about your experiences and events vs. how much your wife has. And not only communication, but how much time spent with inner reflection about recent events. This should play an important role in solidifying memories and making them persistent.
claytongulick 4y ago
I'm in the same boat. I can remember old Win32 C APIs and details like DDX that I haven't used in 20 years, but I frequently make gaffes with my wife, not remembering things that are important to her. I can remember the paper, pages and formatting of old Sam's and Wrox technical manuals, I can visually recall the exact shade of blue of the old DOS Borland C compiler, and the look and feeling of the pages in favorite books I read as a teenager. But my wedding is just a series of fragmented images all mixed up with outher things. I remember the night my wife and I met only in "narrative form". She, on the other hand, can remember events like that in crystal detail, she can describe everyone that was there, what they were wearing, etc... I read this study with a sense of comfort, nice to know it's not just me. Based on some of the comments here, I think it would be interesting to see if this sort of thing is a trend with different sexes.
wruza 4y ago
my spouse remembers exactly every tiny detail from years ago “Cause you don’t care!”

JaimeThompson 4y ago

Are you able to form mental images in your head? I'm wondering if people who can't have more trouble with such things.

warp 4y ago
There is a study here which looks at that: https://t.co/xYJvPJRUCj https://t.co/xYJvPJRUCj ( "Memories with a blind mind: Remembering the past and imagining the future with aphantasia"). I assume I have aphantasia, and I have bad episodic memory -- so to me linking the two makes sense. However, I don't remember (hah!) if the study linked above was able to establish that link as well.
InvaderFizz 4y ago
Not GP, but I experience the same thing. Wife remembers everything, I only remember extremely significant events, and not that much about the fine details. My capability for creating visual scenes is great, I really enjoy books because of the vivid scenes they paint in my mind. My visual memory of events is often literally fuzzy and in the third person(out of body, spectating myself in the scene).
haswell 4y ago
I am aphantasic, and have virtually zero memory of my past beyond a few fragments here and there. I’ve often wondered if the two are connected.
- v64 4y ago
  To offer a counterexample, I have aphantasia, but have very detailed memories of my childhood. I have no problem recalling details like the full names of all my elementary school teachers, when I met most of my friends in school, and details about field trips we took. That being said, I only have visual aphantasia, so it may be that remembering these peoples' voices or what places smelled and sounded like may be helping those memories. I dated someone without aphantasia who was amazed at my childhood recall compared to her own. It turned out she later discovered she had SDAM.
germinalphrase 4y ago
I have a very vivid imagination (and utilize it professionally), but my time/date/name recollection is quite poor. I also score quite high on imagistic/spatial thinking, fwiw.
driggs 4y ago
I believe that deficiencies in Episodic Memory can be related to Aphantasia. My hypothesis is that when people with high mental image visualization recall an event, they are re-experiencing it in a sense, and therefore reinforcing its details (or details as remembered, at least!). A person with aphantasia recalling that event does not re-experience it in a way that triggers this feedback loop, not as efficiently or completely at least. I have very detailed memory about facts, places that I've been and seen, including spatial models; but how many times I've visited a place, who I was with on which trip, which events occurred on which visit, these details quickly become obscured and lost.
- towaway15463 4y ago
  From personal experience, I don’t think aphantasia and lack of episodic memory are related. I have a poor memory for personal experiences as far as what was said or how I felt and often don’t remember things from a first person view but I have very strong visual mental imagery and spatial reasoning. This results in most of my memories of experiences being 3rd person or “fly through” where I can clearly picture the environment I was in, the people who were there, and myself but seen from other perspectives as if observing a scene. I realize that my memory of all the details isn’t perfect and that they are largely filled in by my prior knowledge or even imagination but it is still accurate enough for the important things. It’s not very useful though and I often wish I could remember what people say or even what I said.
  - driggs 4y ago
    If you have "very strong visual mental imagery", then by definition you have no personal experience with aphantasia.
    - towaway15463 4y ago
      Yeah I was saying I didn’t but I also don’t have good episodic memory so my point was that they aren’t directly connected at least for me.
pitaj 4y ago
As a counterexample: I have good mental image capabilities, but have a terrible episodic memory.

swayvil 4y ago

Same here. She remembers all this stuff over decades. I can barely remember last week. Sometimes I wonder if there's something up with my brain. Yes, I am actually pretty good at other brain stuff. Software and design and such. Good at concentration. And there's that "absent minded professor" archetype to consider. On the third hand, working outside in this heat can bake the brains right out of your head.

lazide 4y ago
Personally, I’ve noticed I’ll cycle between something like this (absent minded professor) and very aware with a good memory of events, times, and sequences. For me, it’s largely based on type of mental load, anxiety, and degree of rest and exercise. Low stress, mental load low and mostly oriented towards people, and good diet and exercise and I’ll be able to remember almost every moment and recall and integrate it into a coherent narrative quite easily. Mental load high and focused on abstract deep concepts? Higher anxiety? Less exercise and not as good nutrition? Where am I, and who are you?
dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y ago
> Sometimes I wonder if there's something up with my brain. Yea it's called being a man. Biologically speaking men statistically have far fewer connections between the two halves of their brain. Your wife basically has a gigabit link between her two halves while you're on 56k, which contributes to the intensity of her integrated story-telling experience. On one hand this often gives women better recall, but it also generally enables men to ignore intense experiences better (i.e. easier to block out the cross-chatter) and soldier forward. > Yes, I am actually pretty good at other brain stuff. The results establish that male brains are optimized for intrahemispheric and female brains for interhemispheric communication. -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896179/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896179/

Foobar8568 4y ago

Basically the same, maybe with a twist, I feel that my brain is optimizing my memory for my current "activities". I can recollect anything related to my current jobs, up to 15years ago might be still recallable, but anything else will be just bribe of information. And no need to ask me the name of my best friends/girl friends etc during my teenagehood -earlier, just blank.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

layer8 4y ago

This may be related to how much you have communicated with others about your experiences and events vs. how much your wife has. And not only communication, but how much time spent with inner reflection about recent events. This should play an important role in solidifying memories and making them persistent.

claytongulick 4y ago

I'm in the same boat. I can remember old Win32 C APIs and details like DDX that I haven't used in 20 years, but I frequently make gaffes with my wife, not remembering things that are important to her. I can remember the paper, pages and formatting of old Sam's and Wrox technical manuals, I can visually recall the exact shade of blue of the old DOS Borland C compiler, and the look and feeling of the pages in favorite books I read as a teenager. But my wedding is just a series of fragmented images all mixed up with outher things. I remember the night my wife and I met only in "narrative form". She, on the other hand, can remember events like that in crystal detail, she can describe everyone that was there, what they were wearing, etc... I read this study with a sense of comfort, nice to know it's not just me. Based on some of the comments here, I think it would be interesting to see if this sort of thing is a trend with different sexes.

wruza 4y ago

my spouse remembers exactly every tiny detail from years ago “Cause you don’t care!”