Have you ever experienced the embarrassment of meeting someone on the street who politely greets you and not remembering who he or she is? Or have you ever not been able to find your car where you parked it (or at least you think you did). Many aspects of our lives depend on the efficiency of our memory, and that's why we often wonder how it works and how to improve it. This volume answers such questions on the basis of the most up-to-date psychological studies, and in addition offers an interesting synthesis of peculiar cases, in which individuals manifest exceptional memory skills, because they are either limited by specific disorders or enhanced by exceptional abilities.

Anna M. Longoni teaches Psychology of Learning and Memory at the "La Sapienza" University in Rome.