People with extraordinary memory talents suggest that your mind may be capable of retaining more than you think, says Adam Hadhazy.
Unlike digital cameras with full memory cards that cannot snap any more pictures, our brains never seem to run out of room. Yet it defies logic that one adult human brain – a "blood-soaked sponge," in writer Kurt Vonnegut's words – should be able to limitlessly record new facts and experiences.
Neuroscientists have long tried to measure our maximum mental volume. However, what scrambles any simple reckoning of memory capacity is the astounding cognitive feats achieved by dedicated individuals, and people with atypical brains.
Many of us struggle to commit a phone number to memory. How about 67,980 digits? That's how many digits of pi that Chao Lu of China, a 24-year-old graduate student at the time, recited in 2005. Chao uttered the string of numbers during a 24-hour stretch without so much as a bathroom break, breaking the world record.
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