This is an excerpt from two of my big lists - my famous synaesthetes list and my famous autistics list:
Solomon V. Shereshevskii 1886?-1958?
He was also known as “S”, "Shereshevsky", "Sherashevsky", “Sheresevsky”, “Cherechevski” and “Veniamin”. He was a Jewish Russian journalist, professional mnemonist (memory feat performer) in a stage show and had other jobs. He was married and had kids. He was famous as the subject of the classic case study The Mind of a Mnemonist: a Little Book About a Vast Memory by Russian neuropsychologist Alexander R. Luria (Luriia), Shereshevskii’s extraordinary eidetic memory is thought to have been aided by his synaesthesia, of which he had a number of different types including projector-type synaesthesia. Shereshevskii was a vividly visual thinker but he reported trouble remembering faces. It is important to note that it is far from clear from the scant second-hand description of Shereshevskii's experience of face perception whether his experience was like that of a prosopagnosic (person with a face recognition disability) or more typical of normal face perception, and scientific tests of face recognition did not exist in the age in which his case was explored. On page 127 Shereskevskii describes imagining "...a face familiar to me from childhood" and his recollections from his infancy include seeing his mother's face and recognizing his father's voice (p. 78). Shereshevskii was not blind to facial expressions, as some commentators have claimed, in fact he reported that facial expressions interfered with his ability to remember faces (p. 64 1987 HUP edition). His parents may have had unusual memory abilities and Luria described some of his siblings as "gifted individuals" (Luria 1968). Shereshevskii’s amazing mind has been discussed in relation to Asperger syndrome in a book and in a journal paper (Wilding & Valentine 1997, Wing 1981). Shereshevskii “seemed to have behaved not unlike someone with Asperger syndrome. Unfortunately, Luria did not give enough details to allow a diagnosis to be made” according to Asperger syndrome expert Lorna Wing (Wing 1981).
References about the most fascinating and amazing Solomon Shereshevskii
Elfakir, Abdelhadi (2005) Mémoire et autisme: de la neuropsychologie à la psychanalyse. Le cas de Cherechevski. I’Information Psychiatrique. Novembre 2005, Volume 81, Number 9, p.763-70.
[French paper that appears to be arguing that S. Shereshevskii was autistic]
Luria, A. R. & Solotaroff, Lynn (translator) (1968) The mind of a mnemonist: a little book about a vast memory. Jonathan Cape.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12983496/Alexander-Luria-The-Mind-of-a-Mnemonist
[Shereshevskii’s name is given as “S” in this book, the author’s name is sometimes spelt Aleksandr Luriia, autism/AS not mentioned but S’s synaesthesia and extraordinary memory abilities are fully docmented]
Wilding, John M. and Valentine, Elizabeth R. Superior memory. Psychology Press, 1997.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=lBHYHgpxDEkC&dq=wilding+valentine+1997&source=gbs_navlinks_s
[partly available at Google Books]
Wing, Lorna (1981) Asperger syndrome: a clinical account. Psychological Medicine. 11, p.115-129.
http://www.mugsy.org/wing2.htm
[Shereshevskii mentioned as a possible case]
Yaro, Caroline and Ward, Jamie (2007) Searching for Shereshevskii: what is superior about the memory of synaesthetes? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 2007 May;60(5):681-95.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17455076
[some discussion of Shereshevskii, and Figure 1 shows the many types of synaesthesia of his described by Luria, with page numbers given]
I think the 1886 birthdate for S. is probably wrong - it's inconsistent with him having met Luria in his late 20s, as described by Luria. At this time Luria would have been no more than 14 years old, given he was born in 1902.
ReplyDeleteI can find no sources for the 1886 date prior to it appearing, unsourced, in Wikipedia in 2006 or so.
Tomas
When such basic details as dates of birth and death and a standard spelling of his surname in English are in doubt, it really does make me wish that someone from Russia would research and write an independent biographical account of S based on documents that I hope still exist in Russia. There must surely be records of his memory shows or his journalistic career? When Luria presents the world with a truly extraordinary and hard to believe case study, the standard medical model of having a completely anonymous and untraceable study subject is hopelessly inadequate. From Australia in 2012 as a person who has no Russian language skills I have been unable to find any document besides the translation of Luria's book as evidence that S ever existed at all. I am forced to take Luria's word for it. If you know of more info about S I'd love to know.
ReplyDelete6Some comments on the various spelling's of Shereshevsky's name you have listed.
ReplyDelete- "Shereshevsky" would be the usual transliteration of the Russian. "...skiy" and "..skii" are also logical transliterations.
- "Sherashevsky" is not a standard transliteration. It is however used in the English translation of Luria's autobiography "... the Making of Mind", which is in fact the only authoritative source I can find in English that is closely connected with Luria and mentions S's name at all. Also, while it's not a standard transliteration, it is phonetically reasonably faithful to the Russian.
- "Sheresevsky" is almost certainly just a typo
- "Cherechevsky" is a French style transliteration
- "Veniamin" is his father's name, which following Russian naming conventions forms part of his name (the Patronymic). It doesn't make much sense to say that S. was "known as" Veniamin.
Tomas
I've found one other source on S. - it's "Development of Memory" by Leontiev, apparently from 1931. Unfortunately I only have it in scanned form, and it's all in Russian. I did study Russian at school, but that was a long time ago and it's all a bit of a challenge!
ReplyDeleteFrom what I can decipher so far, there's some data on S's memory that doesn't appear in Luria's writing, for example saying that he could memorise 25 digits in 50 seconds (not especially impressive compared to a typical trained mnemonist).
Tomas
Wow! Thanks for the info, Tomas. An alternative source of info about S? I'm amazed, and most interested. Can this document be bunged thru Google Translate?
ReplyDeleteI think I considered or checked the book about Luria as a source on S, but at the time thought it would not have much on S in it. Did you realise that librarian cataloguers randomly give Luria's name an extra i in it, just to make it more impossible to find his book?
Re the name Veniamin, I included this name because I found it used as S's name in French documents. They seem to use it as a pseudonym instead of S. I had assumed it was a middle name.
This isn't the book - different title?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.marxists.org/archive/leontev/works/development-mind.pdf
That's a different book. Unfortunately it doesn't look like "Development of Memory" has ever been translated into English. And because it's a messy scan, it's not possible to automatically translate it.
ReplyDeleteTomas