Has any recent progress been made in better understanding how idiot
savants do what they do, particularly those who can add long columns
of figures instantly?
In the late 50s, I knew a man in his early thirties everyone called
Willie the wizard. Willie was an arithmetic savant. Poor Willie was
dysfunctional in all other areas and his behavior odd to say the least
(he ate nothing but canned salmon and milk!), but when it came to
adding numbers, Willie was flawless.
I once asked Willie how he performed this feat. We were sitting at a
table in my dad's restaurant. On it was a copy of the Minneapolis
Morning Tribune. Willie pointed to the masthead and said "When you
read and speak the name of this paper, you don't have to think of each
letter separately, do you? I see all numbers at once." Of course, the
mechanics of "seeing all numbers at once" made no sense to me then,
nor does it now.
Do the brains of such savants perform calculations in the same way
that the rest of us do, only faster, or are their calculations the
result of an entirely different process? |
