Chester Santos

Last updated
Chester Santos
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Memory Expert
Motivational Speaker
Known for2008 USA Memory Champion

Chester Santos is a memory expert and motivational speaker best known for winning the USA Memory Championship. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] He has been profiled in numerous publications and media outlets such as The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , The Washington Post , NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Business Week , USA Today , Yahoo! News, Google News, Wired magazine, Reuters and Sports Illustrated . [2] [3] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] His interview with CNN was featured on the VH1 show “The Best Week Ever”. [15]

Contents

In an October 2012 episode of NOVA scienceNOW entitled “How Smart Can We Get”, Santos trained New York Times columnist and CBS News correspondent David Pogue in ways to improve his memory. [3] In November 2012, as part of the university's Superior Memory Project, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis put Santos through a battery of tests designed to “unlock the secrets of his brain.” [16] His participation included completing a series of tests designed to probe his memorization abilities and limitations. [16]

Santos appeared in a July 2013 episode of Memory Games, a series produced by the Science Channel. [17]

Early life

Santos grew up in Hanford, California. [18] He attended Fresno City College before transferring to the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor's in Psychology. [18]

Career

Santos placed in the top five at the USA Memory Championship from 2005-2010, with two third places in 2005 and 2007; and a second-place finish in 2006. [1] He won the 2008 USA Memory Championship and represented the United States at the 17th World Memory Championship, which was held in Bahrain. [1] [19]

Santos is the creator of the memory-training Steel Trap iPhone application. [20] SteelTrap reached the number two ranking for downloads of Educational applications and was the 47th most downloaded application overall in the Apple iTunes store on June 6, 2010. [21]

In March 2012, while performing before a crowd in New York City, Santos demonstrated memory of all 435 members of the United States House of Representatives, their party, their state, which district they represent and the committees they sit on. [12] [22] Santos has also memorized every Kentucky Derby result since 1875 including the winning horse, jockey and time to one hundredth of a second. [23] [24] He has memorized the Academy Awards’ Best Picture winners for every year since 1927. [6] [24]

He was a featured speaker at the 2012 MLOVE ConFestival Europe. [4] [25]

Santos can memorize a shuffled deck of cards in three minutes. [8] He can also remember 100 new faces and names in 15 minutes. [8] He remembered 24 new faces and names in under five minutes in an interview with NBC News. [26]

Regimen and technique

Santos works on memory and recall for thirty minutes a day. [9] His training increases in length, up to multiple hours a day, as he prepares for competitions. [9] Santos also incorporates aerobic exercise into his training regimen. [24]

Santos uses multiple mnemonic techniques including using the phonetic alphabet and various visualization techniques. [9] One visualization technique is called the Roman room, in which an individual associates pieces of information with objects in a familiar space. [9] A similar technique Santos also uses is called the journey technique, where a person associates pieces of information with points of interest along a familiar or known route. [9] [24] When associating pieces of information with objects or points of interest, Santos engages as many senses as possible to increase memory retention. [3] A third visualization technique used by Santos is the called the body list, where pieces of information are associated with parts of the body. [11]

Santos associates a person's name with a memorable image when remembering faces and names. [23] He then associates that image with a notable or memorable physical characteristic of that person. [26]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mnemonic</span> Learning technique that aids remembering

A mnemonicdevice, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.

The mnemonic peg system, invented by Henry Herdson, is a memory aid that works by creating mental associations between two concrete objects in a one-to-one fashion that will later be applied to to-be-remembered information. Typically this involves linking nouns to numbers and it is common practice to choose a noun that rhymes with the number it is associated with. These will be the pegs of the system. These associations have to be memorized one time and can be applied repeatedly to new information that needs to be memorized.

CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the CBS Evening News, CBS Mornings, news magazine programs CBS News Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and 48 Hours, and Sunday morning political affairs program Face the Nation. CBS News Radio produces hourly newscasts for hundreds of radio stations, and also oversees CBS News podcasts like The Takeout Podcast. CBS News also operates a 24-hour digital news network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Memorization</span>

Memorization is the process of committing something to memory. It is a mental process undertaken in order to store in memory for later recall visual, auditory, or tactical information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Method of loci</span> Memory techniques adopted in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises

The method of loci is a strategy for memory enhancement, which uses visualizations of familiar spatial environments in order to enhance the recall of information. The method of loci is also known as the memory journey, memory palace, journey method, memory spaces, or mind palace technique. This method is a mnemonic device adopted in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises. Many memory contest champions report using this technique to recall faces, digits, and lists of words.

The title mnemonist refers to an individual with the ability to remember and recall unusually long lists of data, such as unfamiliar names, lists of numbers, entries in books, etc. Some mnemonists also memorize texts such as long poems, speeches, or even entire books of fiction or non-fiction. The term is derived from the term mnemonic, which refers to a strategy to support remembering, but not all mnemonists report using mnemonics. Mnemonists may have superior innate ability to recall or remember, in addition to relying on techniques.

Hyperthymesia, also known as hyperthymestic syndrome or highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), is a condition that leads people to be able to remember an abnormally large number of their life experiences in vivid detail. It is extraordinarily rare, with only 62 people in the world having been diagnosed with the condition as of 2021. One who has hyperthymesia is called a hyperthymesiac.

The art of memory is any of a number of loosely associated mnemonic principles and techniques used to organize memory impressions, improve recall, and assist in the combination and 'invention' of ideas. An alternative term is "Ars Memorativa" which is also translated as "art of memory" although its more literal meaning is "Memorative Art". It is also referred to as mnemotechnics. It is an 'art' in the Aristotelian sense, which is to say a method or set of prescriptions that adds order and discipline to the pragmatic, natural activities of human beings. It has existed as a recognized group of principles and techniques since at least as early as the middle of the first millennium BCE, and was usually associated with training in rhetoric or logic, but variants of the art were employed in other contexts, particularly the religious and the magical.

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Brad Williams is an American man from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin who is considered by scientists to have one of the best memories in the world and one of the only twenty-five people in the world who has been confirmed by researchers as having a condition called hyperthymestic syndrome. He can remember almost every day of his life, easily naming the day of the week, date, month, and year of innumerable personal and public events.

Johannes Mallow is a German memory sportsman. He is a two-time winner of the World Memory Championships. He studied successfully Communication Technology at the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg and finalized his PhD thesis in 2016 at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He also works as a mind coach and scientific author.

Exceptional memory is the ability to have accurate and detailed recall in a variety of ways, including hyperthymesia, eidetic memory, synesthesia, and emotional memory. Exceptional memory is also prevalent in those with savant syndrome and mnemonists.

Eidetic memory is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only once and without using a mnemonic device.

Memory sport, sometimes referred to as competitive memory or the mind sport of memory, refers to competitions in which participants attempt to memorize then recall different forms of information, under certain guidelines. The sport has been formally developed since 1991 and features national and international championships. The primary worldwide organizational bodies are the IAM and WMSC.

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The USA Memory Championship is an annual competition that took place every spring in New York City until 2016, and is currently held in Orlando, Florida, after an online qualifier. It was founded by Tony Dottino, President of Dottino Consulting Group, Inc., and Marshall Tarley in 1997. Designed to test the limits of the human brain, the USA Memory Championship is an organized competition in which Memory Athletes (MAs) attempt to memorize as much information as possible in events such as Names and Faces, Cards, Random Numbers, Images, and guest information at a fictional "Tea Party". Since 2018, there is also often an event called Long-Term Memory in which the MAs are given reams of data a month in advance about a wide variety of subjects such as the Period Table of the Elements, Space Shuttle missions, NFL Hall-of-Famers, etc. Participation is open to US citizens who are at least 12 years of age. The competition currently consists of 9 total events, 5 of which are online qualifying events, while the last four events are held at a live event to determine the champion.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "World Memory Statistics: Chester Santos". World Memory Statistics. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  2. 1 2 "Software engineer is top U.S. "mental athlete"". Reuters. 9 March 2008. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "How Smart Can We Get?". PBS Nova. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  4. 1 2 "MLOVE ConFestival Europe 2012 – Speaker Lineup". MLOVE. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  5. 1 2 "Walk Down Memory Lane With Chester Santos". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  6. 1 2 "The Unforgettable "Memory Olympics"". CBS Evening News. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  7. ↑ Ramirez, Anthony (12 March 2006). "You Must Remember This, or Just Forget About It". New York Times. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  8. 1 2 3 Scott, Megan K. (20 June 2008). "'Brain fitness' market booming with Boomers". USA Today. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "It Was a Day to Remember For America's Mental Athletes". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  10. ↑ "American Morning". CNN. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  11. 1 2 Madrigal, Alexis (22 April 2008). "Video: US Memory Champ Helps You Program Your Memory". Wired. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  12. 1 2 "US man gets unforgettable win - in memory contest". Yahoo! News. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  13. ↑ "The Memory Champion". ABC News. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  14. ↑ "REMEMBER The National Memory Championship". Sports Illustrated. 9 March 2009. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  15. ↑ "American Morning". CNN. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  16. 1 2 "Megaminds: Wash. U.'s search for the world's supermen (and women) of memory". Riverfront Times. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  17. ↑ "'Memory Games': Trick To Remember Names And Faces". AOL on Tech. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  18. 1 2 Chen, Alice C. (22 June 2008). "Playing for Keeps". SFGate. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  19. ↑ "Mind Games". SF Weekly. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  20. ↑ "Steel Trap Memory Trainer". Tiguer. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  21. ↑ "Steel Trap". App Annie. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  22. ↑ "How people with amazing memories boost their brains; Experts credit exercise, fish oils for mental acuity". New York Daily News. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  23. 1 2 "What's on Your Mind". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  24. 1 2 3 4 "USA National Memory Champion Chester Santos Unlocks the Secrets of Pattern Memorization". The Equine Chronicle. Retrieved 4 October 2013.[ permanent dead link ]
  25. ↑ "MLOVE Berlin 2012 - My Top Ten Highlights". Venture Village. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
  26. 1 2 "SF Memory Man Has Uncanny Recollection of Names". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved 4 October 2013.
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