“Supermemorizers” are being sought to take part in a study of why some people are exceptionally good at remembering things.
Anyone who thinks they are gifted is asked to take an online test and survey – and some of the best will be invited to Cambridge.
Scientists there will perform MRI scans to see if there are any differences in their brain function or structure.
“Memory is one of the most well-understood mental processes in terms of brain networks, but we still don’t know why some people have extraordinary memories,” said University of Cambridge professor Jon Simmons.
The researchers also wanted to find out whether people with neurodiversity or autism were more likely to have good memories.
They had previously worked with author Daniel Tammet, who is autistic and has synaesthesia (experiencing one sense through another) and can recall the 22,514-digit number pi .
Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, who led the study, encourages anyone who thinks they might be a ‘super memory’ to try take an exam – both neurotypical and neurodiverse.
It is open to people aged 16 to 60 and includes games such as remembering patterns and sequences of objects.
Dr Carrie Allison, from the Cambridge Autism Research Centre, hopes the project will help them “learn more about memory and whether good memory is linked to autism”.
“For decades, autism research has focused on disabilities, but this study is a great opportunity to focus on strengths,” she said.
Another test quickly finds objects and then asks people to locate them in sequence of up to 24 items
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According to Guinness World Records, one of the world’s best memorizers is Rejveer Meena from India, who was able to memorize pi to 70,000 decimal places in 2015.
It took him 10 hours and he was wearing a blindfold.
Kim Surim from North Korea can also memorize the sequence of 2530 playing cards in one hour at the 2019 World Memory Championships.