unduki wrote:
This post makes me wonder if one can develop "savant" skills. For those who were not diagnosed early, certain behaviors were heavily discouraged and not allowed to develop. Any thoughts on this?
The brains are plastic, so generally it should be possible.
I have learned pi to 700 digits by now and I never knew that I could do it, but I assumed it would be possible, but my "savantism" is more in remembering music like whole balletmusic-scripts of two hours lenghts up to every note. Or other classical music scripts (not the notes, but from listening to it). I have it since I was little, I was listening to Mozart and it was fixed into my brain (age 4).
So, if for eg you want to learn digits of pi, you have to find a mnemonic technique how you can remember/recall "things" the easiest. I used the sound of the pushbuttons of my mobile phone, because I have a musical memory. And I remember how it is written down on the paper that I printed out, that's why I can also write it backwards, but not from left-above to right, but from right-below to left, so I "print" it backwards. But: this extreme focus makes me much less wanting to connect with the world, but still I am "addicted" to it.
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English is not my native language, so I will very likely do mistakes in writing or understanding. My edits are due to corrections of mistakes, which I sometimes recognize just after submitting a text.
20 Jan 2012, 3:50 pm
But since figuring all of this out recently, it's really opened my eyes to WHY my memory and ease of learning things is so outside of the norm. I really would like to explore this more, but most of the research is so focused on grapheme-color synesthesia, which I do not have.
