Monday, December 20, 2010

"60 Minutes" does superior autobiographical memory

In a piece produced by Shari Finkelstein, Lesley Stahl had two segments to cover the concept of "superior autobiographical memory," wherein a person can remember events on basically every past day of one's life. James McGaugh of the University of California at Irvine has been studying the phenomenon. However, it was Lesley who introduced him to the capabilities of Taxi actress (and former UChicago student) Marilu Henner, and then got all five "memorists" together. Curiously, of the five, only Henner had been married.

Curiously, the ability to remember this detail may be linked to compulsive ["OCD"] behavior. These people also have large temporal lobes.

Although Professor McGaugh presented this information as a newly found discovery, one notes that the character "Monk" would seem to manifest these attributes. Specifically, in a Christmas episode of "Monk", the title character goes through events of various Christmas's past with complete recall, including one in which he was given a single walkie-talkie.

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