The woman who can't forget?

[Hamradioguy]

A couple of months ago on a news show a chap was featured who also apparently had a remarkable photographic memory. Now I don't, so I can't recall the specifics. I believe he was a long time reporter for a small radio station or newspaper. Anyhow, besides the usual "give the day of the week for a given date" (Which as already pointed out here isn't all that remarkable) he could go into great specifics about what happened on any given date. I didn't sense that there was any kind of flim-flam going on. He just seemed to have a genuine ability to recall what happened on whatever date he was given. Perhaps someone else here can recall more about this gentleman.

 

[Dragoonster]

Came upon this page on records for various memorization/calculation categories, including some calender memorization:

http://www.recordholders.org/en/list/memory.html#digits-4s

I once saw Bob Costas interview Henner. He gave her a date and asked her what she was doing. It turned out to be (according to her) the day that she lost her virginity. She seemed genuinely flabbergasted that he'd come up with that date. He insisted he'd picked it at random.

Genuine or not, it was pretty entertaining.

I remember that one. Was sad to see that show and the HBO one come to an end, and not on repeats anywhere. Costas did some great interviewing.

 

[monoman]

Oh, it was a bad pun... I must have come across as pedantic.

If you speak the Queen's then it's not too bad a pun.

As for Catamite, I had the peasants dust off the old Oxford and report back on that one.
If a vigorous rubbing of intimate areas, for the purposes of hygiene, constitutes that then, forthwith, I shall refer to them as my loyal Catamites.

 

[luchog]

Why isn't she a doctor or lawyer or some other job that requires a great deal of memorization? It'd be great to have a doctor that could memorize every possible symptom and every possible treatment for every possible disease at the snap of her fingers.

Because memorization is not actually the most important skill for those jobs. Good observation, critical thinking, and judgement skills are. Savant type people are commonly extremely limited in what they're able to do, and often have serious deficiencies in other areas. The phenomenon is typically associated with profound autism and other developmental disorders, and brain injury or disease. It has been well documented.

If this woman is a true savant, then that's interesting; but unless you're a neurologist, it's nothing more than a curiosity. If not, well, pretending to be one doesn't really gain her anything beyond a bit of very minor and momentary celebrity -- a little attention, nothing more.

Don't see why so many people are getting so haired-out about debunking it.

 

[VespaGuy]

I once saw Bob Costas interview Henner. He gave her a date and asked her what she was doing. It turned out to be (according to her) the day that she lost her virginity. She seemed genuinely flabbergasted that he'd come up with that date. He insisted he'd picked it at random.

Genuine or not, it was pretty entertaining.

I saw the same interview. I thought it was Carson who interviewed her, but according to Wikipedia, you are correct - it was Costas. The date he gave her was actually the date of the first moon landing. Which would have made her 17 years old when she lost her virginity.

 

[Gregoire]

I saw someone on the Today show making the same claim a while back. They "tested" him by giving him three different dates and had him decide which date he wanted to talk about. After listening to the choices, he chose the date that just happen to match the day of the broadcast, just 20 or so years earlier.

All in all, I wasn't impressed. I say ask these people who claim they "can't forget" to tell us what the weather was like on some date 20 years ago. That should be "easier" for them to remember than just a headline which they may not have read. Now that might be impressive.