The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory

magellan 2006-08-10

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Thirty years ago I remember this case being discussed in my physiological psychology class, a field in which I eventually went on to grad school, and I still remember the case of "S" to this day. Luria's little book became an instant classic in the neurological and memory literature and has probably never been surpassed as a case study of a uniquely retentive and creative memory talent. Recently, I came across a review of the book on the Literature, Arts, and Medicine database, and I thought it was such a nice little summary of the book that I wanted to include it here, since it's not that long, along with a few of my comments.

I have to mention one thing that the review didn't mention is the time the subject, known simply as S, who never seemed to forget anything, even years later, actually did seem to forget an item during Luria's many years of studying him. But how that happened tells us a lot about how his memory worked, which was very visual.

S used an interesting association system to memorize things. He used to walk the same way to school when he was a boy, which took him down various streets, back alleys, and buildings in town, and he would simply place the items he had been asked to remember along his path. To recall all the items in order, he would simply imagine himself walking along his familiar route, and he would see the objects he had been asked to remember as he went. The item he couldn't recall he had placed in a dark recess of a back alley he used for a shortcut and apparently it got lost in the darkness, which was why he couldn't see it. :-)

Here is the review from the Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database:

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One day in the 1920's, a newspaper reporter walked into the laboratory of Russian psychologist A. R. Luria and asked him to test his memory, which he recently had been told was unusual. It was not unusual. It was uniquely and astoundingly retentive. Luria gave him very long strings of numbers, words, nonsense syllables and could not detect any limit to his ability to recall them, generally without mistake, even years later. (Luria studied S., as he identifies him, for thirty years.)

Luria discovers that the man had some interesting characteristics to his memory. He experienced synesthesia, i.e., the blending of sensations: a voice was a "crumbly, yellow voice." (p.24) S.'s memory was highly eidetic, i.e., visual, a characteristic not unique to him but which he used as a technique to memorize lists and details. (He had become a performing mnemonist.) It was also auditory. He had trouble remembering a word if its sound did not fit its meaning. The remainder of the section on his memory involves fascinating aspects of his having to learn how to forget and his methods of problem solving.

The remainder of the book is equally interesting since it relates the epiphenomena of S.'s prodigious memory: how he mentally saw everything in his past memory; how he was virtually paralyzed when it came to understanding poetry since metaphorical thinking was almost impossible for him, a mnemonist who lived in a world of unique particulars! As Luria wrote, "S. found that when he tried to read poetry the obstacles to his understanding were overwhelming: each expression gave rise to an image; this, in turn, would conflict with another image that had been evoked." (p. 120)

S. could control his vital signs by his memory and, last but not least, this human experiment of nature had such a vivid imagination that, probably more than the most creative of us, he engaged in "magical thinking": "To me there's no great difference between the things I imagine and what exists in reality. Often, if I imagine something is going to happen, it does. Take the time I began arguing with a friend that the cashier in the store was sure to give me too much change. I imagined it to myself in detail, and she actually did give me too much--change of 20 rubles instead of 10. Of course I realize it's just chance, coincidence, but deep down I also think it's because I saw it that way." (p. 146) Commentary

An international giant in clinical neuropsychology and an inspiration for Oliver Sacks's narratives, Luria helped pioneer the study of the individual patient as interesting bridge between normal and abnormal psychological processes rather than studying animals in a maze, or groups of humans in an experimental setting. His "N of 1" close readings remain fascinating reading today, including The Man with a Shattered World (see this database).

S.'s incredible memory and all its attendant advantages and detriments recall Borges's short story, "Funes the Memorious (Funes el Memorioso)".

Very Interesting

Fascinating and Dull at the Same Time

J. Wisdom 2004-09-23

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

If you're looking for a good overall introduction to synesthesia, this isn't it. (For this, see Richard Cytowic's book entitled, Synesthesia.) On the other hand, if you're looking for a first-hand account of a famous psychologist's interaction with a synesthete, then you're in good shape with Luria's book. In the first half of The Mind of a Mnemonist, Luria describes how he first learned about "S", a young Russian news reporter with an amazing memory. He then describes in a fair amount of detail, often using S's own descriptions, how S experienced the world. He also gives a rather detailed account (again, often reproducing S's own testimony) of both how S went about memorizing and recalling so many items of data, and where the boundaries of S's memorizing abilities were (e.g., S had a hard time recounting the gist of a story he'd heard read aloud). Because of this, the first half of the book can at times be dull and repetitive.

In the second half of the book, Luria focuses on the effects that synesthesia had on S's personality and overall quality of life. Here's where it gets a bit more interesting, and a bit sad at the same time. S could remember in detail events dating from the first year of his life *and* how he felt at the time (could you imagine being able to remember in detail every mistake your parents made or how it made you feel, from infancy onward?!?). Moreover, the combining of senses made it difficult for him to do two things at once (e.g. he couldn't eat ice cream and read at the same time because the flavor of the ice cream would drown out the sense of the words). Still, even these chapters (i.e., chapter four, "his world" and chapter five, "his mind") get a bit tedious. The final chapters treat S's control of his behavior and his personality. S had a rather amazing ability to raise or lower his body temperature in a particular limb (e.g. his left or right arm), raise his heartbeat, decrease the pain he felt when under the dentist's drill, and the like. However, living with synesthesia caused him to be quite a dreamer, often unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

My guess is that psychology and psychiatry students with an interest in synesthesia will derive the most benefit from Luria's book. The rest of us are left with a rather mixed bag. Still, at just under 120 pages, The Mind of a Mnemonist doesn't require an enormous amount of time to read.

(On a bit of a side note, those who are curious about the real name of "S" can find it in the book...I don't know if they intended it to be there or not, but in one instance "S" divulges his identity.)

Just one story

Douglas Harper 2003-08-07

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

One of the positive side-effects of Oliver Sacks is that he has called attention in America to the works of the great Soviet psychiatrist Aleksandr R. Luria, many of which have been translated from Russian into English.

"The Mind of a Mnemonist" is a slim book that tells the story of a man identified only as "S," whom Luria knew and worked with for decades, a man who literally could not forget. Like other such bottomless memories, "S" was a side-show curiosity whose ability was a burden as much as a gift. Luria details the difficulties "S" had in grappling with daily life, where thinking clearly depends so much upon forgetting the useless.

I have no idea whether Borges had ever seen this book when he wrote "Funes the Memorious," which is a wonderful fictional account of just such a mind.

The book also takes a fascinating detour into the condition that somehow gave "S" his powers, synesthesia. People with synesthesia can "hear" colors and "see" sounds. Smells have textures. Shapes have sounds. This seems to be a natural condition in infancy, but most people lose it, except for remnants of this when people talk about "warm" colors or "cold" sounds.

The composer Alexander Scriabin was among those who retained a complex synesthetic sensitivity into adulthood. S. was another. "What a crumbly, yellow voice you have," he told one psychologist. For him, numbers had personality: "5 is absolutely complete and takes the form of a cone or a tower -- something substantial. ... 8 somehow has a naive quality, it's milky blue like lime ...." And Luria gives this account of an experiment: "Presented with a tone pitched at 2,000 cycles per second and having an amplitude of 113 decibels, S. said: 'It looks something like fireworks tinged with a pink-red hue. The strip of color feels rough and unpleasant, and it has an ugly taste -- rather like that of a briny pickle ... You could hurt your hand on this.' "

Experiments were repeated over several days at the Academy of Medical Sciences in Moscow, with dozens of tones, and the results were invariably the same. This synesthesia of sound is the essence of poetry, too. Dante divided words into "pexa et hirsuta," combed and unkempt (or "buttered and shaggy" in Ezra Pound's translation). S. used exactly the same words -- "prickly," or "smooth" -- for sounds, voices, words.

If you don't need one author to do all your thinking for you, if you can take what you read in one place and apply it to what you know from others, this book will expand your awareness of the human experience in an unforgettable way.