What is it like to remember every day of your life? With Michael Yassa, PhD, and Markie Pasternak

Speaking of Psychology

Kim Mills

Health & Fitness, Life Sciences, Science, Mental Health

4.3 • 781 Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For people with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, or HSAM, every day is memorable. Ask them what they were doing on this date 10 years ago, and they’ll be able to tell you. Markie Pasternak, one of the youngest people identified with HSAM, and Michael Yassa, PhD, director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California Irvine, talk about what it’s like to have this ability, what we know about how the brains of people with HSAM store and retrieve this vast amount of autobiographical information, and what studying this unique ability can teach us more generally about how memory works. Are you enjoying Speaking of Psychology? We’d love to know what you think of the podcast, what you would change about it, and what you’d like to hear more of. Please take our listener survey at www.apa.org/podcastsurvey. Links Michael Yassa, PhD - faculty.sites.uci.edu/myassa Markie Pasternak - http://livingwithtotalrecall.home.blog Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Twas the night before Christmas when all through our home, friends were waiting for drinks at the party we'd thrown.
0:07.2	With an espresso martini mixer from Fever Tree, all you need to add is the vodka, you see.
0:14.2	Five espresso martinis ready in a second. A Christmas miracle, everybody reckoned.
0:23.9	So this holiday season mix with the best,
0:31.5	with fever tree cocktails for you and your guests. Please enjoy responsibly. Do you remember where you were on April 10, 1999? What day of the week was it? What about the weather? What were you wearing and what did you do all day?
0:41.2	Chances are you can't answer any of those questions. For most of us, our autobiographical memory is a bit of a
0:47.6	blur. Sure, some special occasions stand out, weddings, birthdays, vacations, along with a bundle of
0:54.1	random memories that stick with us for no special reason.
0:57.0	But for people with highly superior autobiographical memory, or H-SAM, every day is memorable.
1:04.0	Ask someone with H-SAM what they were doing on April 10th, 1999, or the 11th, or the 16th, and they'll be able to tell you, along with
1:12.8	a bunch of other checkable facts. How do they do that? How do the brains of people with H. Sam's
1:18.8	store and retrieve this vast amount of detailed autobiographical information? What's it like to be
1:24.9	able to remember every day of your life?
1:29.4	Is it a blessing or a curse?
1:35.0	And what can studying this unusual ability teach us about how memory works for the rest of us?
1:41.2	Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life.
1:45.5	I'm Kim Mills.
1:49.2	We have two guests today.
1:51.8	Dr. Michael Yasser is the director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
1:56.5	at the University of California, Irvine.
1:59.2	The center was established in 1983 by Dr. James McGaw,
2:02.6	and it's where the first research on highly superior
	...

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