Posted on 12/14/2005 3:17:58 PM PST by blam
Nasa tries to figure out real-life Rain Man's brain
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday December 11, 2005
The Observer (UK)
It took Kim Peek just over an hour to read Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. Four months later, when asked to give the name of the book's Russian radio operator, Peek quoted the entire relevant passage.
It was a prodigious feat. Yet for Peek - the real-life 'savant' on whom Dustin Hoffman's character in the film Rain Man is based - such recall only gives a glimpse of his powers. He knows 9,000 books off by heart; he can direct people around US cities from maps he has memorised years ago; and he has total recall of the dates of all major world events.
Now studies of Peek's abilities are being used by scientists to shed intriguing light on the human mind, and to open the way for men and women to exploit far more of their intellectual potential, as the latest issue of Scientific American reveals.
'Kim's story tells us that the human brain is far more flexible than we had thought,' said Darold Treffert, a psychiatrist and co-author of the Scientific American paper told The Observer. 'Like many other savants, he has suffered disability in one area of his brain, but has compensated by acquiring remarkable new abilities in other areas. This shows we all have considerable hidden intellectual potential. By studying Kim and other savants, we can learn how to tap those powers.'
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
He probably know where I left my car keys.
Can he bend spoons?
Very cool
Uh oh fart. Uh oh fart.
Others are able to recall most of that page, and yet others can literally read the page in their mind and rattle it off to you.
Savants seem to have a better access to this capability ~
.
I'm a good driver. I'm a good driver. I'm a good driver.
I can only remember the centerfold..
There is no spoon...
Sometimes I can recall what I had for breakfast....not always but sometimes.
246 Toothpicks
(4 left in the box)
This is nothing. John kerry need only look pull notes from his jacket pocket to master any debate.
I can't remember my name unless I write it on the waistband of my underwear. For the last few years, I've thought I was some guy named "BVD." Now I know I'm really Calvin Klein.
I tried it and I think you're right but without actually finding the book and checking I wouldn't bet the farm. Most of us probably also fool ourselves.
That's Kerry on the reverse of the MA quarter, you know. (Hillary is on hte reverse of the NY quarter.)
Noooo problem.
What we are doing is creating a "memory palace" while we read. There are Biblical references to such devices, e.g. the trees in the Garden of Eden, the cages in Noah's Ark, and so forth in case you need a quick reference, otherwise the internet is available for your search. This is how knowledge was stored, and retrieved, in the vast age before writing. That the same technique could be tied to writing itself should not surprise anyone.
I was thinking more along the lines of "Call me Ishmael".
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