Is there a name for the phenomenon of remembering the position on a page or location in a book as part of the process of recalling a memory? For example, knowing that something was on the left side half-way through the page about two thirds of the way through a book? How would you describe that experience or classify someone that often used that type of memory retrieval process.
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1$\begingroup$ Welcome to Psychology.SE I would think this has to do with "photographic memory" at least to a degree. What has internet searching provided you so far? $\endgroup$– Chris RogersCommented Jun 20, 2019 at 11:05
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$\begingroup$ It must be something other than that. My own recall is the opposite of "photographic memory", aphantasic, but I often remember the general location on a page where I recently read something significant. That I recall it literally as the words "middle of the left page" rather than as an image doesn't change the phenomenon. $\endgroup$– Ray ButterworthCommented Oct 30, 2021 at 18:30
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How would you describe that experience or classify someone that often used that type of memory retrieval process.
Based on what I think you are asking, you might call this "eidetic memory". Less formally it is known as "photographic memory", or sometimes "perfect recall". However, these abilities do not generalize to all domains of memory. Usually the memory is limited to certain experts of specific domains who have just developed an ability to recognize certain meaningful patterns. This is evidenced by the fact that random arrangements of pixels are not nearly as memorable as learned special patterns, even for people supposedly having perfect recall.
Is there a name for the phenomenon of remembering the position on a page or location in a book as part of the process of recalling a memory?
There is no term I am aware of that is so specific to describe the memory of book pagination, let alone where on the page something was located. Eidetic memory essentially covers that.
