科学与数学newyorker.com
点燃一个关于无法遗忘之人的神话
Sparking a myth about a man who could not forget
2017 — 2024，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
《纽约客》这篇文章讲述了俄国记忆奇人 Shereshevsky（案例中的“S”）的故事：他拥有近乎不可能的记忆力，能记住几乎一切，但也因此被无法遗忘的记忆所困扰。文章结合神经学家卢里亚的经典研究，并借助其侄子的回忆，揭示了这位“完美记忆者”背后更复杂的真相。
为什么经久不衰：它把一个流传近百年的“超忆症”神话重新审视了一遍，兼具科学史与人物故事的深度，多年来反复引发讨论。
HN 评论精选
联觉不只是奇特体验，还会真实干扰日常生活
整篇文章都很精彩，但这段最让我惊讶：Shereshevsky 连早餐时读报都要避免，因为文字在他脑中唤起的味觉会与食物的味道冲突。我听说过联觉，但不知道它会对日常生活产生这样的实际影响。（另外还聊到《纽约客》使用分音符的排版传统。）
nathan_f77查看英文原文
The whole article is fascinating, but this part was very surprising: > Shereshevsky avoided such things as reading the newspaper over breakfast because the flavors evoked by the printed words clashed with the taste of his meal. I've heard of synesthesia, but I never knew it could have real-life consequences like this. Unrelated: That's the first time I've seen the word "reëxperience" with an umlaut. Wiktionary has it as an "alternative form" [1]. And I found this Wikipedia article [2], which says you can use it in other words, like: coöperative, daïs and reëlect. And apparently it's called a "diaeresis". So that was interesting to learn. It's also interesting that the New Yorker must follow a style guide that requires diaereses. Oh wow, I just found the New Yorker article specifically about their usage of diaereses. [4] [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reexperience [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical_marks#Native_English_words [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic) [4] http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis
S 的“完美记忆”部分来自刻苦训练的记忆术，而非纯粹天赋
我多次读到过这个案例，文章中最让我印象深刻的事实是：S 离开新闻行业后曾专门学习成为职业记忆表演者，还向马戏团的人请教如何让表演更吸引人。他其实并非百分之百过目不忘——如果不刻意去记，他也会忘。侄子说他每天为晚上的演出训练数小时；卢里亚也不否认他使用记忆术，但认为那只是对其天赋的补充。他记忆的持久性依赖于构建精细的多感官心理意象并编入想象的故事场景中。晚年他找到了另一种“抹去记忆”的方式——酗酒。
danmaz74查看英文原文
I read about this case several times; these are the facts that stuck out the most for me from the long article. S actually studied to become a professional mnemonist, after leaving journalism, and learned from circus people how to make his performances more engaging. He didn't actually have 100% recall: "His uncle, Reynberg said, could be forgetful. If he didn’t consciously try to commit something to memory, he didn’t always recall it later." "Reynberg told me that his uncle trained hours a day for his evening performances." "Luria doesn’t deny Shereshevsky’s use of mnemonic devices, but he maintains that these came later, and that they merely complemented Shereshevsky’s immense natural abilities." "The strength and durability of his memories seemed to be tied up in his ability to create elaborate multisensory mental representations and insert them in imagined story scenes or places; the more vivid this imagery and story, the more deeply rooted it would become in his memory." "Instead of burning memories on scraps of paper, Shereshevsky found a different kind of erasure in his final years, according to his nephew: he turned to drinking."
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