A memory that is unforgettable
LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) - February 22, 2008 For example, he can tell you it was Aug. 18, 1965, when his
family stopped at Red Barn Hamburger during a road trip through
Michigan. He was 8 years old at the time. And he had a burger, of
course.
"It was a Wednesday," recalled Williams, now 51. "We stayed
at a motel that night in Clare, Michigan. It seemed more like a
cabin."
To Williams and his family, his ability to recall events - and
especially dates - is a regular source of amusement. But according
to one expert, Williams' skill might rank his memory among the best
in the world. Doctors are now studying him, and a woman with
similar talents, hoping to achieve a deeper understanding of
memory.
Williams, a radio anchor in La Crosse, seems to enjoy having his
memory tested. Name a date from the last 40 years and, after a few
moments, he can typically tell you what he did that day and what
was in the news.
How about Nov. 7, 1991?
"Let's see," he mused, gazing into the distance for about five
seconds. "That would be around when Magic Johnson announced he had
HIV. Yes, a Thursday. There was a big snowstorm here the week
before."
He went on to identify correctly some 20 other events including
the birth of the first test-tube baby in 1978, the toxic-gas leak
in Bhopal, India, in 1984, and Billie Jean King's victory over
Bobby Riggs in tennis' "Battle of the Sexes" in 1973.
"I've always been this way," Williams said. "Growing up, I
never really had reason to think I wasn't like everyone else."
So how does he do it?
"You want the Nobel Prize right now? Tell me that answer and
I'll publish it," said Dr. James McGaugh, who has studied Williams
since last summer. "We don't know. We do know that he carries this
information with him, that it's detailed, that it's just there.
That's what we want to know - why is it there?"
Williams' brother first contacted McGaugh, a research professor
at the University of California, Irvine, after the neurobiologist
published a case study of a similar person in the journal Neurocase
in 2006.
That woman is in her mid-40s and was identified only by the
initials A.J. She told McGaugh whenever she hears a date, memories
from that date in previous years flood her mind like a running
movie. The phenomenon, she laments, is "nonstop, uncontrollable
and totally exhausting."
"Most have called it a gift, but I call it a burden," she
wrote. "I run my entire life through my head every day and it
drives me crazy!!!"
McGaugh and his colleagues subjected A.J. to a battery of
psychological tests. Given a date at random, she was nearly
flawless in recalling the day of the week and what she did that
day. The details she provided invariably matched what she had
written in diaries decades earlier.
Scientific literature documents people who could memorize a
series of 50 to 100 random letters or digits. Another person read a
330-word story twice, then reproduced it nearly verbatim a year
later.
But those research subjects remembered meaningless information.
What distinguishes Williams and A.J. is their "superior
autobiographical memory" - an above-average ability to remember
dates and details from their distant past, McGaugh said.
"In subjects we regard as having this ability, they do better
than 90 percent on the tests we provide," McGaugh said.
The tests typically involve reproducing personal information
that can be corroborated with old scrapbooks, yearbooks and
diaries, sources that McGaugh often tries to obtain from family
members without the subjects' knowledge.
Other tests involve naming a notable public event and asking for
its date, or vice versa.
Williams and A.J. both performed better on topics that
interested them. Williams excels at pop-culture trivia such as
Academy Award winners, but he stumbles on sports.
A lifelong bachelor and self-described Scrabble addict, he
finished second when he appeared on "Jeopardy!" in 1990. He says
he went 5-for-5 on "1984 movies" but tripped up on categories
including "snakes" and "words that begin with 'kh'."
Because a person's interest in the information is a key factor
in recall ability, some researchers doubt that Williams and A.J.
are unique.
"If it's a truly amazing memory that just sucks things up, it
shouldn't be based on how interesting something was to you," said
Stephen Christman, a neuropsychologist at the University of Toledo
in Ohio.
Christman, who wasn't involved in the research, pointed to
baseball fanatics who remember obscure statistics because of their
passion for the game. Perhaps, he speculated, A.J. obsesses so much
over past events and relives them so frequently in her mind that
it's now effortless for her to recall countless dates and events.
The number of people with comparable memory skills has been hard
to pin down. After publishing his research with A.J., McGaugh heard
from about 50 people claiming they had the same skill or, like
Williams' brother, knew someone who might.
Of them, McGaugh and his colleagues have identified a third
person - a 50-year-old Ohio man - who shows similar promise.
Ever since pointing his elder brother in McGaugh's direction,
Eric Williams, 45, has been recording Brad's adventures for an
upcoming documentary. The movie, to be titled "Unforgettable," is
scheduled to be completed later this year.
"The human brain is the most complicated and important
machinery in the known universe," McGaugh said. "My aim with this
research isn't to cure Alzheimer's. It's to decrease the mystery of
this marvelous machinery."
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On the Net:
Upcoming documentary on Brad Williams:
http://unforgettabledoc.com/