The Right Side Brain Savant
Savant syndrome occurs when a person with below normal intelligence displays an incredible ability in a specific area — like, for instance, if George W. Bush had extraordinary musical, mathematical, or artistic talent. ;-)
One thing to note about the super abilities of savants: they are gifts usually associated with the right side of the brain.
The Divine Right Side Brain
People with savant syndrome seem to have right-side brain abilities on steroids.
Savants may be able to mentally double 8,388,628 up to 24 times within a few seconds, paint amazingly accurate cityscapes from photographic memory, or sit down at a piano and play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 after only one listen.
Until recently, savant syndrome was thought to occur due to some sort of injury to the left side brain — occurring either inside the womb, or shortly after birth — which caused the right side brain to overcompensate.
But more recently, scientists have pondered whether we all have unconscious right side brain super abilities.
Allan Snyder, award-winning physicist and director of the Center for the Mind at the University of Sydney, says everybody has the innate capacity for savantlike skills:
Even something as simple as seeing requires phenomenally complex information processing.
When a person looks at an object, for example, the brain immediately estimates an object’s distance by calculating the subtle differences between the two images on each retina (computers programmed to do this require extreme memory and speed). During the process of face recognition, the brain analyzes countless details, such as the texture of skin and the shape of the eyes, jawbone, and lips. Most people are not aware of these calculations.
In savants the top layer of mental processing — conceptual thinking, making conclusions — is somehow stripped away. Without it, savants can access a startling capacity for recalling endless detail or for performing lightning-quick calculations.
This theory has been bolstered by a growing number of cases in which normal people suddenly acquire savant-like super talents after a head injury, after the onset of frontotemporal dementia in old age, and also, sometimes during deep hypnosis.
The Right Side Brain Experience of Jill Bolte Taylor
Brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor got the opportunity to experience the full power of the right side brain firsthand. One morning, when a stroke disabled her left side brain, she experienced the world according to her right side brain.
After years of rehabilitation, Taylor was able to tell the world about her experience:
TEDTalks Video: Jill Bolte Taylor describes what it’s like to lose your left side brain.
Daniel Tammet: The Rosetta Stone of Brain Research
Daniel Tammet is a savant gifted with super mathematical and natural language abilities. He’s most famous for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits, and for learning Icelandic in a week. He’s also fluent in English, French, Finnish, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Estonian, Welsh and Esperanto.
There are fewer than 50 prodigious savants in the world, and unlike the rest of them, Tammet has no obvious mental disability. Because his language skills are functioning to a high degree, he can describe his own savant thought processes, which makes him a scientific Rosetta Stone for brain researchers.
Tammet explains that he “experiences” numbers, each with its own unique shape, color, and texture, and emotion. When solving math problems, he doesn’t consciously work out the answers, but sees the answers appear, emerging from mutating, multiple-sensory landscapes.
In 2005, Tammet was the subject of an engrossing UK documentary, well worth the watch:
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Daniel Tammet: The Boy With The Incredible Brain (1/5)
Daniel Tammet: The Boy With The Incredible Brain (2/5)
Daniel Tammet: The Boy With The Incredible Brain (3/5)
Update: Don’t miss the next post on Achieving Left and Right Brain Balance.
Read More: autistic, savant, savant syndrome, left side brain, right side brain, Jill Bolte Taylor, Daniel Tammet
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