There are a few anecdotal cases of photographic memory, but I wouldn’t call the ones I’ve seen “photographic”. It seems more like “extraordinary base memory combined with obsessive interest and practice”. Their abilities aren’t any less amazing for achieving them with practice, but I’m not convinced that “photographic” is the right description.
(An easy way to test someone for photographic memory would be to instantly put them on level 10 Memory League numbers and words to see how they do, without any practice.
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There is at least one psychiatrist who made claims about observing people with photographic memory, but he wasn’t careful in his research. (He also made some wild claims about ESP.) There isn’t time to check original sources for every fact, and sometimes things he said get repeated without verification.
The term “photographic memory” is sometimes used as a synonym for “eidetic imagery” in conversations. I’ve tried to go back to original sources for claims about eidetic imagery and didn’t find anything photographic there yet. (I’m going to look for my notes later.)
Here’s one quote:
In fact, there is no scientific consensus regarding the nature, the proper definition, or even the very existence of eidetic imagery, even in children (see the commentaries published with Haber, 1979). Some investigators, most notably Haber (1979), hold that it is a real (albeit elusive), distinct, and sui generis psychological phenomenon, whose mechanisms and psychological functions (if any) may well turn out to be quite different from those of ordinary memory or imagination imagery. Others, however, such as Gray & Gummerman (1975) and Bugelski (1979), argue that reports of eidetic imagery are best understood merely as rather hyperbolic descriptions that are sometimes given, by some children (and, perhaps, the occasional uneducated and illiterate adult), of ordinary (though perhaps particularly vivid) visual memory imagery.
Also this:
Eidetic imagery is predominantly, but rarely, found in children from 6 to 12 years and virtually absent in adult populations… It is important to mention that eidetic imagery is not photographic and hence does not generally benefit memory performance …
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