Eidetic Memory; low IQ (Aspie Intelligence?)

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I am an 18 year old female Aspie. I have been tested over and over, and my IQ is an inconclusive 90-115. However, people always assume that I am of superior intelligence because I seem full of knowledge and information, almost like a walking encyclopedia. I never considered eidetic memory as a possibility before, because although my memory is very precise, I do often forget things. However, in taking psychology classes, I have learned that even eidetics will forget, or, rather, push away, info they don't want or don't like to think about. I also learned through personal research that most kids under 6 have eidetic memories, but they lose it as they gain abstract thinking skills. However, as a side thing of my Asperger's, I have little of this skill, and perhaps it has hindered what would have been the loss of my early childhood memory precision. What do you guys think?

First I would say that most people with aspergers tend to have increased skills of abstract reasoning. Furthermore most people with aspergers tend to have large reserves of knowledge about things that interest them or information they find interesting.
As to the Iq test thing, some IQ tests are highly biased (especially the more standard ones) and tend to give artificially low scores to the autistic due to their irrational focus on a false link between language and intelligence, rather than the analysis of abstract cognitive abilities.

I don't believe IQ scores on autistic ppl are very accurate at all. However, and I can only speak from what I've experienced through my daughter as I'm a NT and thereby a freak lol, she says that her memories are like files in her head. She always says, "hold on mommy I have to file this in my files" when she "filing" a memory. She does tend to remember only the things of interest or relevant to her though so it sounds like your probably dead on in your theory.

I remember what I want to remember, what I like to remember.

I also remember traumatic events.

I have both extremes. I would say in some ways I have an eidetic memory for facts, especially psychology. Also random things that happened YEARS ago, with perfect accuracy. Even if its insignificant. At the same time however, my short term memory is absolutely horrible. I can see things in my head, this is why I know so many facts and knowledge. Also some events in my life, pleasant or not. But I am also missing big chunks of my life. So in some ways I have photographic memory and other ways it is so far away. What this has to do with IQ, I don't know. My IQ is relatively low. In the Borderline Intellectual Functioning range. While I have lots of facts, I don't know how to do simple things. Its black and white. Nothing in between. Its either extremely good memory for certain events (better than anyone in my family) or I can barely remember my name.

Thank god somebody eventually made this thread. I have always thought this about myself. I have an IQ of around 90, which isn't particularly good but IQ's are not a particularly accurate way of judging intelligence anyway. My memory is exceptionally good however and because of this it can appear as if I am very good at tests like IQ's. Even the arguments I have for God and so forth, which seem exceptionally rationalistic in a way seem as if they have been acquired through research. I struggle greatly because of this to come to a conclusion about an issue I have yet to research. Glad to know someone else feels the same.

Unless I'm mistaken, isn't 90-115 counted as NORMAL?

Not exactly LOW.

Congrats on your logical reasoning toward the existence of God. And please remember that I.Q. tests are based on cognitive presumptions which do not apply to human beings on the extreme ends of the bell curve.

I have a terrible memory, unless something is going on that'd get adrenalin flowing. Then, I'm more apt to remember in detail. Otherwise, if I remember, it's the jist, not the details.

No man, nor any faculty of man, can be reduced to a number. For man is a substance whose complexity can best be ascertained by the accident of quality, and not like the lesser creatures, reducible to a biology of quantity.

Only Satan, 666, is a number! The rest of us are defined by having a name. Think about it.

"I am not a number! I am a free man!" -- The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan

Last edited by JSBACHlover on 15 Jan 2014, 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Correct. 110 is pretty much average, so that's not remotely low.

70 would be low.

Yup. It's the peak of the bell curve. The place where most people are.

I used to have an awesome memory (although not all the way to eidetic) but it has waned with age. But the OP is young and has decades of good memory to look forward to.

No, you are right, sorry but not as high as the information I am aware of may give the impression of if that makes sense. The various persons who have created most of the information I have at my disposal seem to have had far larger IQs. Plus, I was under the impression that people with aspergers tended to have higher than average IQs so that is generally what I meant. Sorry, though.

Sorry was the congrats on the logical reasoning towards the existence of God sarcastic? I find it hard to read between the lines through a computer.

Yes, very true. Plus IQ tests are so dependent on a variety of variables that they can't really considered to be truly objective. The food you eat, the sleep you have gotten the previous day, your current mental state- all of these things have a considerable impact on how you are going to perform on such tests. Also, it tends to not take into account the ability to think in a creative way. It seems that, although people like Einstein had exceptionally high IQ's and were able to think extremely logically, there was also a creative, chaotic and playful nature to their thoughts that enabled them to make the breakthroughs they did. Maybe not though. Also, it seems as if IQ tests are the kinds of tests you could be come good at if you practiced them enough.

It's the lower end of normal.