True Photographic Memory Has Never Been Demonstrated to Exist

You'll occasionally come across a movie where a character boasts of having a photographic memory. There have been persons who have showed a fantastic recall under experimental conditions, therefore this biological quirk seems to be really helpful. The Rain Man character had memorized almost 9,000 novels from cover to cover. However, photographic memory as it is described in literature has never been proven in practice. In other words, photographic memory does not exist in reality. The only thing that is real is something close to it, called Eidetic memory. Eidetic memory is the capacity to accurately answer questions about a picture after having seen it for, say, 30 seconds and retain precise details about it.

You might wonder how someone could memorize 9,000 books but not have a photographic memory. It all depends on how they retain information. Lu Chao's ability to memorize pi to 67,890 digits is incredible, but he definitely couldn't do it the other way around. It's important to note this since a real photographic memory would enable instant access to any detail in any order. Although you may believe the difference is insignificant, there is a difference.