Your 'learning style' is determined by the nature of your mental representations. Your "hardware" uses a mix of
verbal,
visual (a.k.a. eidetic),
auditory,
kinesthesic (i.e. involving physical response) 'learning channels' (Barbe and Swassing 1979).
Although, admittedly, people's brains may give preference to some of these channels, all of use use
every one of these channels, be we aware of it or not.
Evidence of the effect of one's predominant learning style on achievement has been provided by recent research (Moore 1992). For this reason, it is advisable to find out one's own style. Certain findings (Hinkelman and Pysock 1992) have shown that
the auditory style is preeminent to many people , contrarily to the "popularity" of the visual style.
On the other hand, keep in mind that combined use of different learning channels ("organic" learning) is likely to improve your results, especially since transfer between learning channels is not necessarily trivial, even if the activities involved are similar (Lindsley 1995).
For this reason, I would suggest you not to rely that much on the myth of photographic memory and
find out which is your own style.
Good luck!
Bibliography BARBE, W.; SWASSING, R. (1979) Teaching through modality. Strengths, concepts and practices. Columbus, Ohio: Zaner-Bloser.
LINDSLEY, O. R. (1995) "Ten products of fluency." Journal of Precision Teaching, 13(1), 2-11.
MOORE, R.C. (1992) Effects of computer assisted instruction and perceptual preference(s) of eighth-grade students on the mastery of language arts and mathematics. [EdD thesis] Orangeburg: South Carolina State University.
PS
If you want to train your memory, may I suggest a multimedia trainer called VTrain (Vocabulary Trainer), available from
http://www.vtrain.net/home.htm
