Researchers examined a woman with distinctive reminiscence recall. Her case might rework understanding of how we relive the previous and picture the longer term.
Autobiographical reminiscence is the power to recall private experiences which have formed us since childhood. It contains each emotional and sensory recollections of individuals, locations, and occasions, together with factual particulars akin to names and dates that assist situate us after we attempt to retrieve a second from the previous.
For most people, the readability of those recollections varies with time or private significance. As a result of reminiscence is dynamic, recollections typically lose element, disappear totally, or are reconstructed partly. But in very uncommon circumstances—just a few documented within the scientific literature—some folks can entry such an abundance of autobiographical element that they’ll join particular occasions to specific calendar dates.
“In these people, often called hyperthymesics, recollections are fastidiously listed by date. Some will be capable of describe intimately what they did on July 6, 2002, and expertise once more the feelings and sensations of that day,” explains Valentina La Corte, a analysis professor on the Reminiscence, Mind, and Cognition Laboratory at Paris Cité College.
The flexibility to recall private experiences contributes to the development of our life narrative and strengthens our sense of id. Autobiographical reminiscence is carefully tied to a type of consciousness known as “autonoetic,” which allows us to mentally revisit the previous, think about the longer term, or image hypothetical eventualities.
People with hyperthymesia (additionally known as autobiographical hypermnesia) can carry out this psychological time journey with placing vividness and ease. “Learning this atypical cognitive functioning might assist us higher perceive how autobiographical reminiscence works, in addition to the neurological problems that have an effect on it,” says Laurent Cohen, neurologist and co-head of the PICNIC Lab at Paris Mind Institute.
A Reminiscence Palace for Organizing Recollections
Reviews in scientific literature and media accounts typically painting hyperthymesia as a burdensome trait, the place distressing and even traumatic recollections accumulate with out management. Some folks with this capability additionally describe being flooded by trivial or pointless particulars.
In distinction, Valentina La Corte and Laurent Cohen studied the case of TL, a 17-year-old woman who appears to handle her reminiscence entry with a exceptional diploma of management.
TL makes a transparent distinction between two classes of reminiscence. Her “black reminiscence” consists of encyclopedic data, primarily discovered at school, that carries little or no emotional significance. In distinction, her private recollections are organized in an elaborate psychological framework—a sort of reminiscence palace—that she will be able to name up at will.
These are filed by theme and chronological order in binders, that are saved in a room with a really low ceiling that she calls “the white room.” TL mentally scans by them to retrieve episodes associated to her household life, holidays, mates, or childhood objects. Some recollections are even saved within the type of textual content messages or images.
The woman makes use of psychological illustration instruments to isolate recollections linked to detrimental feelings akin to unhappiness, grief, or misery. As an illustration, her grandfather’s loss of life is saved in a chest contained in the white room. She additionally makes use of two adjoining rooms: a “pack ice” room she makes use of to assuage her anger, a “issues” room to mirror on difficulties, and a “army room” populated by troopers, which appeared in her thoughts when her father left house to hitch the military.
Assessing Autobiographical Reminiscence
Researchers lack sturdy instruments to confirm whether or not hyperthymestic recollections are dependable, particularly after they concern distant intervals. Like the remainder of the inhabitants, hyperthymestics are susceptible to false recollections and reminiscence distortions.
Nonetheless, Valentina La Corte and Laurent Cohen used the Episodic Check of Autobiographical Reminiscence (TEMPau) and the Temporal Prolonged Autobiographical Reminiscence Job (TEEAM), which assess how simply folks can mentally journey by time, the richness of the recollections they report, and the way they relate to their very own narrative.
Their findings point out that TL relives moments of her life with distinctive depth and vividness. Typically as an exterior observer, generally as a protagonist, she will be able to re-examine particulars from totally different factors of view. When researchers requested her to think about future occasions, she supplied an unusually wealthy quantity of temporal, spatial, and perceptual data, far past what an atypical particular person can produce.
These observations reinforce the concept psychological journey into the longer term depends on mechanisms just like these utilized in aware exploration of the previous. In each circumstances, sensory data appears to play a vital function.
New Avenues for Analysis
“Autobiographical hypermnesia additionally appears carefully linked to synesthesia, a neurological situation by which processing one sensory modality entails a minimum of two senses. For instance, synesthetes could hear colours, see sounds, or style music. Though TL will not be a synesthete, a number of members of her household are. It could be attention-grabbing to discover this affiliation,” provides Laurent Cohen.
Some research recommend that hyperthymesia is related to overactivation of mind networks concerned in autobiographical reminiscence and sure visible areas. Nonetheless, no neuroanatomical variations have but been discovered between hyperthymesics and people with typical reminiscence.
“It’s troublesome to generalize findings about hyperthymesia, since they depend on just a few circumstances. Does ageing have an effect on the recollections of those people? Do their psychological time-travel talents rely on age? Can they be taught to manage the buildup of recollections? Now we have many questions, and all the things stays to be found. An thrilling avenue of analysis lies forward,” concludes Valentina La Corte.
Reference: “Autobiographical hypermnesia as a selected type of psychological time journey” by Valentina La Corte, Pascale Piolino and Laurent Cohen, 1 August 2025, Neurocase.
DOI: 10.1080/13554794.2025.2537950
By no means miss a breakthrough: Be a part of the SciTechDaily e-newsletter.
