ReadersDigestAustraliaNewZealand-March2018

March• 2018 | 71

PSYCHOLOGY

My

Insanely

Powerful

Memory

BY CLAIRE NOWAK

Anextremelyrareabilitymeanssome

peoplecanremembermostofthedays

of their life in vivid, calendar detail

MARKIE PASTERNAKremembers ex-

actly when she realised her brain was

different. It was Tuesday, August 26,

2014, the beginning of her third year at

Marquette University, in Wisconsin, in

the US. She sat in a class called Learn-

ing and Memory, a psychology course

that covered how people learn and the

different types of memory.

The professor, Dr Kristy Nielson,
stood at the front of the classroom,
going over the syllabus for the semes-
ter. She said if the class completed
the required material, they would
get into ‘the fun stuff ’. That meant
discussing people with abnormally
impressive memories, who can play
ILLUSTRATION: iSTOCK music completely by memory or