If you were to practice something strange? Particularly common Language and Math.

Thread Starter

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
Some people have brain damage and the brain needs to reboot in a way to recover, suddenly they are savants, however can we reproduce without damage to the brain? Could it produce a different type of talent than we currently understand or increase our IQ?

Or will it cost us our current gifts? My mind experiment is to read from bottom to top backward from right to left txt that is rearranged spelled backward and do math backward as well once learning the method or vs versa.

If I try writing backward as well as spell it’s buggering my ability to write and spell. Lol


Any thoughts? Can’t find any experiments on the internet.

kv
 
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ZCochran98

Joined Jul 24, 2018
303
As of yet, the physical/biological mechanism by which savantism occurs is not well-understood. About half of cases occur in those on the autism scale (those on the autism spectrum have about a 10% chance of being savants, statistically), and almost all of the other half occur in those with neurological damage.

As it occurs in either case, the common trend appears to be underdevelopment or outright damage to the left anterior temporal lobe (and can be temporarily replicated by transcranial magnetic stimulation to disable said lobe, to some degree - that's the only experiment I can find on the subject). That section of the temporal lobe is responsible for (among other things) low-level perception, comprehension, naming, and verbal memory. The rest of the temporal lobe is related to memory in general.

Here's a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society that gives a general history of savantism and our understanding of it (as of 2009). It seems that, largely, most savants excel in the arts and memory tasks (which makes sense, considering the means by which it is typically induced and the area of the brain that is affected). It makes a point that the kind of savants we typically think of (the ones with extraordinary ability), or the "prodigious savants," are exceedingly rare (there are <100 known total); most who exhibit savantism are those who are exceptional compared to their other disabilities ("talented savants") or have an obsessive compulsion to memorize certain facts or trivia ("splinter skills"). Based on your question, the section you'd be most interested in is in section 3h of that paper ("No single theory can explain all savants"), and section 4 ("'Training the Talent': Successful Educational Approaches").

I also found another paper (which I have attached) that goes through a ton of background on general savantism, if you care to read it. He does point out that savantism (or, generally, other extreme talents, developed or otherwise) is not correlated to IQ.

Another potentially interesting link: https://www.agnesian.com/blog/acquired-savant-accidental-genius. The author makes the argument that many of the abilities those with acquired savant syndrome have may have been previously dormant, preexisting "compensatory abilities" in the individuals that end up with this condition.

Dr. Darold Treffert, MD seems to be a leading expert on this subject, as many of the papers or resources I found have him as the author or cite his papers.

As a side note, the inspiration for Raymond Babbit in Rain Main was a man named Laurence Kim Peek, a "megasavant" who experienced social difficulties.
 

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Thread Starter

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
As of yet, the physical/biological mechanism by which savantism occurs is not well-understood. About half of cases occur in those on the autism scale (those on the autism spectrum have about a 10% chance of being savants, statistically), and almost all of the other half occur in those with neurological damage.

As it occurs in either case, the common trend appears to be underdevelopment or outright damage to the left anterior temporal lobe (and can be temporarily replicated by transcranial magnetic stimulation to disable said lobe, to some degree - that's the only experiment I can find on the subject). That section of the temporal lobe is responsible for (among other things) low-level perception, comprehension, naming, and verbal memory. The rest of the temporal lobe is related to memory in general.

Here's a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society that gives a general history of savantism and our understanding of it (as of 2009). It seems that, largely, most savants excel in the arts and memory tasks (which makes sense, considering the means by which it is typically induced and the area of the brain that is affected). It makes a point that the kind of savants we typically think of (the ones with extraordinary ability), or the "prodigious savants," are exceedingly rare (there are <100 known total); most who exhibit savantism are those who are exceptional compared to their other disabilities ("talented savants") or have an obsessive compulsion to memorize certain facts or trivia ("splinter skills"). Based on your question, the section you'd be most interested in is in section 3h of that paper ("No single theory can explain all savants"), and section 4 ("'Training the Talent': Successful Educational Approaches").

I also found another paper (which I have attached) that goes through a ton of background on general savantism, if you care to read it. He does point out that savantism (or, generally, other extreme talents, developed or otherwise) is not correlated to IQ.

Another potentially interesting link: https://www.agnesian.com/blog/acquired-savant-accidental-genius. The author makes the argument that many of the abilities those with acquired savant syndrome have may have been previously dormant, preexisting "compensatory abilities" in the individuals that end up with this condition.

Dr. Darold Treffert, MD seems to be a leading expert on this subject, as many of the papers or resources I found have him as the author or cite his definitely
As a side note, the inspiration for Raymond Babbit in Rain Main was a man named Laurence Kim Peek, a "megasavant" who experienced social difficulties.
Thank you, very informative. but it’s the same issues I found. Section 4 is my approach, memory palaces, but social skills might be where they might gain better social skills with e.g. brothers or sisters. With outside social experience may help.

kv
 
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