Exploring Eidetic Imagery among the Retarded

Abstract

Since Haber and Haber had recently established the fact that eidetic imagery (EI) is not a common phenomenon among normal American children, this study was based upon the premise that it may be an abnormal phenomenon, more likely to be found among retarded children. It was reasoned that the prolonged retention of a primitive form of cognition (typified by EI) should be a more likely component of a generally retarded rate of conceptual and language development. This prediction was tested by administering Haber's test for EI to a small group of 34 retarded children. The percentage of eidetikers found in this retarded sample was more than three times greater than that in Haber's normal sample. The total retarded group was selected so as to include an approximately equal number of brain-injured and familial Ss. The most striking finding of this study was the fact that almost all (89% to 100%) of the eidetikers belonged to the brain-injured group. The duration of their images was very long (up to 10 min.) and correlated more highly with primary measures of EI than did accuracy of the reported detail. If these dramatic preliminary results are confirmed with a larger sample, they have interesting implications for a neurological theory of imagery, for future research and for the diagnosis of brain-injured children.