Savant Syndrome (An Overview of Theories and Case Studies)

Greetings ATS, I call upon you good folks today to learn more about one of the most fascinating subjects I have ever come across—it’s in the title—savant syndrome. For all we think we know about the world around us, there always seems to be the proverbial stick jammed into the spokes of true understanding. Savant syndrome is a challenge to many of the ideas we take for granted about what it means to be a human being. It calls into question the possibility of abilities we may latently possess; we cannot ignore that it pushes the boundaries of human potential in ways both creative and cognitive.

What is savant syndrome? Most of us know, but I’m not one to do anything halfway. Strap yourselves in for an overview of this phenomenon which will include theories and case studies. Ultimately, I hope to learn more about this subject by inviting you guys and gals to expand upon where my research points end.

Overview

Savants are people who despite serious mental or physical disability have quite remarkable, and sometimes spectacular, talents. This is an exceedingly rare phenomena, although there are several well documented cases (see Sacks, 1986; 1995; Treffert, 1989... Savant syndrome is perhaps one of the most fascinating phenomena in the study of human differences and cognitive psychology. It is often claimed that, because of the extraordinary abilities involved, we will never truly understand human memory and cognition until we understand the savant.

www.psy.dmu.ac.uk...

Savants are usually characterized by some sort of—what we may call—unnatural or uncanny ability to perform certain feats or skills of the mind that no ordinary person would be capable of. Likewise, these skills appear spontaneously without any training. This can involve the instant calculation of complex equations, or perhaps an adept understanding and utilization of a creative medium such as music.

It is useful to put these special skills into the following three categories: Splinter Skills where the individual possesses specific skills that stand in contrast to their overall level of functioning, Talented Savants where the individual displays a high level of ability that is in contrast to their disability, and Prodigious Savants which involves a much rarer form of the condition, where the ability or brilliance is not only spectacular in contrast to the disability, but would be spectacular even if viewed in a non-disabled person.

www.psy.dmu.ac.uk...

“would be spectacular even if viewed in a non-disabled person.”

Why this comparison to non-disabled persons? This is because savant syndrome is correlated and seemingly linked with autism, although the cause of savant syndrome, and its relationship with autism, isn’t quite clear. It is believed that understanding autism better will help to understand savant syndrome.

There is a broad spectrum of who acquires savant syndrome, but there are some guidelines. This syndrome is usually present in those with marked Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD; a category which autism falls under.) Those who sustain trauma to the central nervous system have also been known to demonstrate savant-like abilities after the injury. Additionally, male savants vastly outnumber the incidence in females (which may point to a neurochemical cause: one theory is a presence of testosterone in the left hemisphere of the brain during development.)

Although there is a strong association with autism, it is certainly not the case that all savants are autistic. It is estimated that about 50% of the cases of savant syndrome are from the autistic population, and the other 50% from the population of developmental disabilities and CNS injuries. The estimated incidence of savant abilities in the autistic population is about 10%, whereas the incidence in the learning disability population (which is very much larger) is probably less than 1%.

www.psy.dmu.ac.uk...

The most common savant-like traits include:

Memorization - superior memory is a common feature of savant syndrome, but it also can be a special skill in its own right. There are cases of savants who have memorized population statistics, telephone books, bus scheduals, and in one remarkable case the 9 volume edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (The Walking Grove, Sacks, 1986).

Lightening calculation - this is exhibited in the instantaneous calculation of multiplications, square roots, etc, the determination of prime numbers, or subitizing (The Twins, Sacks, 1986).

Calender calculating - often involving the ability to identify the day of the week upon which a particular date falls, in one case any time in the last, or next, forty thousand years!! (The Twins, Sacks, 1986).

Musical ability - this is a relatively common savant skill, the co-occurrence of musical genius, blindness and learning disability is a striking feature here. Savants will have perfect pitch, and can play a complete piece of music after hearing it only once (see Hermelin, 2001).

Artistic ability - not as common as musical abilities, but there are savants with exceptional painting, sculpture and especially drawing skills. e.g. Nadia (Selfe, 1977) and Stephen Wiltshire (1987; 1991; see also Sacks, 1995; Hermelin, 2001). See also The Autistic Artist in Sacks (1986).

Language ability - this is fairly rare, but there is one well documented case of a savant with CNS damage since birth who could read write and translate 15 to 20 languages (Smith & Tsimpli, 1995; Hermelin, 2001). Hermelin also includes a case of a savant poet.

www.psy.dmu.ac.uk...

Theories

There are some attempts to explain how some people can demonstrate these remarkable abilities, none of them very conclusive (at least, not in my opinion.) Furthermore, no explanation can diminish the importance of these abilities and my fascination with them.

One theory suggests that the savant has access to a visual memory in which they can cite information.

Eidetic Imagery
An eidetic image is an unusually vivid subject visually. These people tend to see images whether eyes open or closed when provided with a retrieval cue of some sort (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2012) and (Treffert, 1989).
sites.google.com...

Other theories suggest a difference in hardwired cognitive processes.

Concrete Thinking and Inability To Think Abstractly
It is hypothesized that savants have an advantage of accessing the less processed information within our brains before we automatically attempt to perceive the concepts into meaningful labels. As most savants are autistic, individuals with autism have a failure of top-down inhibition. Therefore, they have a privileged entry to information that is blocked out by our perceptions or logic, this could help explain their instinctive logic (Kaufman 2010) and (Treffert, 1989).

sites.google.com...

Could we be genetically predisposed for some of these abilities?

Inherited Skills
This theory assumes that a genetic component is essential for a particular skill to evolve. As any other disease is inherited, it is possible for heredity to play a part in savantry. There has been a linkage found between savant syndrome and specific chromosome: 15q11-q13. The chromosome may be accountable for a certain cognitive style of the individual, but it still does not explain how the skill is fully attributed and developed. (Darius 3, 3.1)

sites.google.com...

Another theory points to hemisphere specialization.

Left Hemisphere Damage
Some theories show a correlation between this condition and pre-natal, peri-natal or even post natal damage to the left hemisphere damage. By harming the left hemisphere, which is well known for logic, the right brain dominates and brings out the intuitive characteristics in the individual (Treffert, 1989).

sites.google.com...

So, what does this mean for the rest of us? Some theorize that savant abilities are not unique, but simply untapped, latent abilities shared by all of us.

…these individuals, categorized as genius's, ironically do not use reason as their source of intelligence. Instead, as Allan Snyder savant skeptist hypothesizes, Savants fail in top-down inhibition and can thereby tap into information that exists in all brains but is normally beneath conscious awareness. Utilizing this theory, in reality, any individuals can achieve savantry.

sites.google.com...

Case studies

As stated earlier, savants fall into different categories: those who exhibit abilities after sustaining a traumatic injury, those who exhibit abilities paired with some form of PDD, or those who exhibit abilities without any of the above requisites.

Let’s start with those who acquire savant abilities following an injury.

Alonzo Clemons has an aptitude for sculpture and creates masterful works of art without the need for a reference model. This contrasts with his inability to feed himself or tie his shoes.

after seeing only a fleeting image of an animal on a TV screen, Alonzo could sculpt a perfect 3D figure of it, correct in each and every detail right down to the muscle fibers.

www.neatorama.com...

Kim Peek, the man who inspired Rain Man was not the autistic savant as portrayed in the film. Instead, it is believed that his brain abnormality was caused by a genetic defect. Although severely handicapped in several ways, Peek has shocking savant abilities.

…he has read some 12,000 books and remembers everything about them. "Kimputer," as he is lovingly known to many, reads two pages at once - his left eye reads the left page, and his right eye reads the right page. It takes him about 3 seconds to read through two pages - and he remember everything on 'em. Kim can recall facts and trivia from 15 subject areas from history to geography to sports. Tell him a date, and Kim can tell you what day of the week it is. He also remembers every music he has ever heard.

www.neatorama.com...

And now here’s a few of the so-called PDD savants.

Leslie Lemke

At 16 years of age, Leslie Lemke bloomed. In the middle of one night, May woke up to find Leslie playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. Leslie, who has no classical music training, was playing the piece flawlessly after hearing it just once earlier on the television.

www.neatorama.com...

Stephen Wiltshire is an autistic savant with a breathtaking ability to skillfully draw from memory.
www.neatorama.com...

Meet Flo and Kay, twins who both possess mental computation abilities as well as a Dick Clark fixation! Any first year psychology student knows the importance of case studies on twins. Luckily, savants sometimes come in twin packages as well. They are featured in this fascinating documentary.



In the case of Jay Greenberg, the young musical prodigy, I can find no mention of him either sustaining traumatic injury or symptoms of PDDs. However, there can be no dispute that his musical ability is nothing less than savant-like.

There is a composer studying at New York's renowned Juilliard School who some say is the greatest talent to come along in 200 years. He's written five full-length symphonies, and he's only 12 years old.

www.truthinshredding.com...

How is it possible? Jay told Pelley he doesn't know where the music comes from, but it comes fully written -- playing like an orchestra in his head.

"It's as if the unconscious mind is giving orders at the speed of light," says Jay. "You know, I mean, so I just hear it as if it were a smooth performance of a work that is already written, when it isn't."
All the kids are downloading music these days. But Jay, with his composing program, is downloading it from his head.

www.truthinshredding.com...

And perhaps one of the oldest recorded cases befalls Jedediah Buxton who displayed an extraordinary utilization of numbers despite having little to no formal education.

The mental feat of Jedediah Buxton was tested by the Royal Society in 1754 - his mathematical brain was able to calculate numbers up to 39 figures.

www.neatorama.com...
en.wikipedia.org...

Don’t let the list stop here! If you know of any astonishing case studies, or have any insight or additional information on this subject, I’d love to learn more. Thanks.

While i was in school, there was a kid who could count anything, instantly. Someone could toss a bag of rubber bands scattered on a table, in a split second he'd shout out '126'! Amazing really... I've also recently heard of an individual in my community who is banned from the local casino because of his 'savant' qualities.

I'm going with the theory that proposes heightened spatial memory. Maybe their regions of plasticity are filtered in their responses and abilities to only hone in on certain things.

Here's a link to a search with relevant articles that will result in a trip down a figurative rabbit hole, but it's fun none the less. I've always enjoyed looking into things like this, so I have something to look forward to now lol.
www.sciencedaily.com...

Hey, what da ya know, here's an interesting article:

'Rain Man'-Like Brains Mapped at Using MRIs and Network Analysis
www.sciencedaily.com...

Pursuing this question, Mukherjee and Sherr turned to MRI and the mathematical technique of network analysis, which has long supported fields like civil engineering, helping urban planners optimize the timing of traffic lights to speed traffic. This is the first time network analysis has been applied to brain mapping for a genetic cause of autism.

The brain offers a significantly complicated challenge for analysis because, unlike the streets of a given city, the brain has hundreds of billions of neurons, many of which make tens of thousands of connections to each other, making its level of connectivity highly complex.

By comparing the seven rain man-like brains to those of 11 people without this malformation, the scientists determined how particular structures called the cingulate bundles were smaller and the neurons within these bundles were less connected to others in the brain. They also found that the network topology of the brain was more variable in people with agenesis of the corpus callosum than in people without the malformation.

I've always wondered if there was a connection between 'savants', their relationship with emotion and their unique abilities. If I'm not mistaken, the brain actually will register an emotion before the signal is interpretated by the brain, in regards to the visual senses. Then to consider that the cingulate bundles were smaller and the neurons are less connected... it would seemingly suggest, that this stimuli maybe isn't stepped down and information lost in the 'emotional' part of the brain, and goes straight to more 'working' parts? Not very technically conveyed, but I think what I said makes sense lol.

Anyways, more to read up on, obviously.


In addition, if anyone can find any relevant information about cognitive function looping that would be cool. I know in cognitive therapies that there are looping exercises and means when attaching particular emotions to events, or breaking said attachments. With the removal of emotional interference, cognitive function looping cant distort the information, or rather change the way we perceive it filtered through bias'

the only interesting thing I could find, and that will shed some light on what I'm referring to.
personalitycafe.com...
Cognitive Function Loops: Practical and Conceptual Problems

Post of the Week! Excellent subject and presentation. Autism and related phenomena rawk! Familiar with many, but not all presented here. Looking forward to digging through it all. Thank you.

Don't forget Temple Grandin. There's actually a really great documentary on the subject of savants available online:



My son is a "borderline" savant with pretty incredible memorization skills. Kind of stood out when he was 8 after he memorized all the pokemon (around 400 at the time) including details such as type, evolved forms, and so on. His memorization capabilities are not as extreme as the ones in the videos but nor are his deficits. His closest comparison in the document would be Matt Savage but my son is less expressive/animated and has always been as pedantic as a professor (earning him the nickname of "The Little Professor" as a child). Unfortunately, my son, now 17 and going to be a sophomore in college next year, only chooses to memorize things that really interest him. Latest one was, after learning Japanese, memorizing Japanese characters. I have no clue how many of them he has actually memorized at this point but was kind of funny picking up his room to vacuum and finding papers of all sizes covered with Japanese characters. It's a little...uhh...strange. He has Asperger's. His deficits are impairments with facial recognition, difficulties with social interactions (way, way, way too logic based), and sensitivity to touch. While he's learned to actually enjoy getting a hug, he will not use brute strength to even open a jar because the sensation disturbs him too much. While I'm proud of his mental achievements, I worry a lot (read: every day) about how he is going to manage as he grows older so even at "borderline", the deficits can still be very worrisome in future independence. It's a hell of a trade off.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha


Dear NarcolepticBuddha,

I have to bite my tongue a bit. Yes, they used to call us Idiot Savants. The current name they use is Aspergers. It is not a disease and it is not a dysfunction, it is an ability. With every ability comes an area where we miss out on something. The range is as wide as the abilities are. Some of us have certain abilities that cannot be duplicated, it is a trade off.

savants could just be glitches in the matrix, a balancer of equations if you will, if there is a matrix.

Originally posted by AQuestion
I have to bite my tongue a bit.

Why? Have I misrepresented anything with my thread? If any of my presentation of the information is inaccurate, please let me know. I'm here to learn more about this phenomenon.

Yes, they used to call us Idiot Savants.

I am not a fan of that term and don't use it.

It is not a disease and it is not a dysfunction

I did not imply that it was. My forum choices were limited and "medical issues" seemed like the logical choice. I wanted to avoid "general chit-chat" and keep this topic in the science category. I have alerted mods when posting to relocate it to a more appropriate forum. Any ideas? Please send an alert and the mods will move it.

No need to bite your tongue. Please let me know where my thread is lacking or inconsistent. Please set the record straight where I failed to do so.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha


I did not see it mentioned anywhere. but I wanted to add that Albert Einstein was and Autistic Savant. I think at one time it was termed Idiot Savant.

Anyways, one thing that I always found interesting was that Einstein could do some of the most complicated mathematics ever known to man, but, he was not even able to do the basic math required to calculate his grocery bill.

reply to post by AQuestion


Absolutely and totally agree. While I do not believe that I would fall remotely close to savant, I'm an autistic female with a decent eidetic memory (I can remember graphs and textbook pages that I memorized 20 years ago as I had a bad habit of "photographing" certain sections/pages 15 minutes before a test--nickname was "The Alien" back then lol), high visual/spatial abilities, and musical ability (including composition and perfect pitch). Comparing my son and I, most people do not even realize that I'm autistic while they immediately note that my son is. Likewise, my son's memorization capacity is probably higher than mine as while I have a considerable "memory bank", I've never done something like memorize every card in a Yugioh deck. I can also open jars and have less difficulty with interpersonal relationships. Standing the two of us side by side, one can really see the truth that the benefits/deficits are both correlated and truly lie on a spectrum.

In terms of inheritance/gender, my son is more extreme than I. My daughter, although several years younger than my son, only has slight autistic traits which may have been environmentally developed, decent memorization abilities and is 2000 times more self sufficient than my son. Although she is 6 years younger than he is, I don't worry at all about her being able to get through life just fine while I fear for my son should anything ever happen to me. At this rate, I'll have to check on him to make sure he's eating, sleeping, bathing, and more because his mind absolutely consumes his awareness. So, female with a ASQ of 40 for a publicly available comparison has borderline savant male child with savant-like abilities and more strong deficits and "gifted" female child with slight autistic traits with few deficits and some abilities (she is not even remotely as autistic as I am--a point that she struggled with for a while because her behavior was so different from ours). Looking at the extended family, my sister is very similar to me with my being the more autistic of the two and has one bright male child with no autistic traits and one at the minimum gifted/possibly borderline savant male child with Asperger's. So both my sister and I have autistic traits but presence of autism in our children seems to be 50/50 for both of us. I think that the gender/inheritance thing is really pretty interesting.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha


Dear NarcolepticBuddha,

No need to bite your tongue. Please let me know where my thread is lacking or inconsistent. Please set the record straight where I failed to do so.

I do not believe you were attempting to be disrespectful to anyone. Some people with Aspergers call everyone else neurotypical. I hate that term, we are all important and unique. Nobody calls Michael Jordan a Savant because his gift is physical. I can see things before others, does that make me weird or just different? I do not believe people me exist because of vaccines, I was born a long time ago. I do not believe I am an accident or caused by anything, I am me and choose to be me, same as everyone else. Do I have skills others do not, yes. Do others have skills that I do not, again the answer is yes.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Dear WhiteAlice,

A pleasure to meet you.

Although she is 6 years younger than he is, I don't worry at all about her being able to get through life just fine while I fear for my son should anything ever happen to me. At this rate, I'll have to check on him to make sure he's eating, sleeping, bathing, and more because his mind absolutely consumes his awareness.

LOL. I have to tell you something. It was not until I went through puberty that I cared enough about bathing. It was because of a woman that I loved, she is dead. She caused me to care about the world and others and opinions and feelings LOL. I used to go days without eating and am still an insomniac. Don't worry, he will overcome those things too or at least find a way to cope with them. Hugs and affection.

Interesting thread. I've always suspected that savants are what happens when the mind or brain fixates on a specific function or ability. I haven't got the knowledge to suspect a cause though.

Originally posted by IvanAstikov
Interesting thread. I've always suspected that savants are what happens when the mind or brain fixates on a specific function or ability. I haven't got the knowledge to suspect a cause though.

Dear IvanAstikov,

It is so hard for me to explain and I respect your response. I don't think we fixate on things, it is not intentional, we notice things differently. That is not a great answer on my part, best I have right now. One of my bosses once asked me to teach someone else what I did, they told me I could take two weeks. LOL. I couldn't teach someone accounting that I have practiced for 20+ years in two weeks and I have been asked to write books on it. It tool three years of law school for me to learn law, how I can I teach someone law in two weeks if they didn't get into law school? Once we get past that, how do I teach them to be Autistic?

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha

Ultimately, I hope to learn more about this subject by inviting you guys and gals to expand upon where my research points end.

I don't know where your research will end, but I will share what I have found out about the subject.

I cant claim to be a Savant, idiot or otherwise, but I have raised some eyebrows in certain circles from some of the conclusions of my personal research.

People have asked me "how do you do it". I just don't know but I can do some guessing.

Savantism has always fascinated me but even more so after my Epiphany which was a long drawn out affair. after the Epiphany opened things would come to me out of nowhere, but it always seemed to be tied to other bits of information that were already in my possession. Then after time the bits of information would almost coagulate into something intelligible.

But what I have experienced is not what the textbook describes as a "Savant". So maybe their might be some missing or unrecognized mechanization's to the phenomenon. A part that can not be held, measured, tested, or otherwise be perceived, and can manipulate itself at its own will.

Savant (French for "knowing", from the French savoir "to know", English since the 18th century)

www.google.com...:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a

Yes, you read that right, a Savant can be a "savior". To save who and what, from who and what remains to be seen, but the very fact that they "Know" certain things without a avenue to learning them must have its genesis outside of our human experience.

It is my understanding that human beings are designed and or created to have a limited number of senses and abilities, just as any other flesh and blood creature displays. But this "Savant Syndrome" actually opens up, or at least gives the appearance that more senses have been developed. Do they still remain human beings if they no longer are limited by what we typically accept as being "Human"?

I myself believe that "Savants" are actually intentional misfits into humanity to show that we are, or can be more, than just smart monkeys. And that the root or core of these extended abilities resides in another place where our humanity actually comes from.

reply to post by AQuestion


The case studies in the OP are examples of prodigious savants. Are you saying you have these miraculous computational and artistic abilities?...because I believe, and by definition of the savant syndrome, they go well beyond a level of skill any human should be capable of.

These skills and abilities, in other words, are not something that many people can even be classically trained to do...and for them to spontaneously manifest, is quite astonishing in my opinion.

According to my sources listed in the OP, it is believed there are less than 100 cases of people displaying savant syndrome. And remember, this syndrome is not just PDD or autistic people we're talking about--this phenomenon reaches those with trauma injuries, and even those with no apparent injury or PDD.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say. It seems to me like you're trying to say that savant syndrome only describes a comparison in skill sets. Prodigious savants who can retain and recite information verbatim from thousands of books, or who can compose complex symphonies without any music lessons, or tell me what day of the week my birthday will fall on in the year 2525 is quite beyond what I would call a skill set.

I believe this syndrome to be an intriguing peak into the vast reservoir of human potential. In the case of prodigious savants, these are abilities that cannot quite be reconciled or explained with what we know about human cognitive development.

I'm sorry to sound contradictory here, but I don't think this is just an example of "I have my aptitudes, and you have yours."

There's a big difference between being a little weird and having a slightly impressive knack for something and being a prodigious savant. I'm sure the OP meant this thread to be a discussion and study of truly interesting and documented cases, rather than every other person alluding to themselves being a soft-core rainman. Contribute with interesting and intriguing thoughts and ideas rather than talking your little quirks up. Just an idea to keep true and be respectful to the topic.

Originally posted by LizardSlicks
There's a big difference between being a little weird and having a slightly impressive knack for something and being a prodigious savant. I'm sure the OP meant this thread to be a discussion and study of truly interesting and documented cases, rather than every other person alluding to themselves being a soft-core rainman.

1,000 thank yous! I couldn't have said it better myself. Indeed, I want to discuss these skills and abilities that seem to defy what we think we know about the human mind.

Having a talent for something, or an unconventional problem solving technique, is definitely not the same thing as being a prodigious savant. The ability to memorize a phone book or similar feat is not exactly something that can be done with mnemonics or memorization techniques.

Thanks for reading, understanding, and attempting to keep the thread on track. Much appreciated.

Feeling a slight need to re-establish what the OP has asked for.

Ultimately, I hope to learn more about this subject by inviting you guys and gals to expand upon where my research points end.

Please forgive me and correct me if I misread a invitation to expand upon the end of the OPs research. It appears the above statement is asking for input above and beyond the given examples and documented cases. If you limit your research to documented cases, you can expect to find yourself where you were, faced with only a puzzle, and ignoring undocumented cases in my opinion, would be a injustice to the research, and creating a catch 22. Besides the obvious hypocrisy of asking for a can of worms to be opened, then trying to shut the can again.

It does not escape me who (and what) some of the major contributors are when it comes to subjects that reside outside of our "Human" experience. You may now call me a "soft core rain man". And as Elvis said "Thank you, thank you very much".

The puzzle of the Savant is not really a puzzle at all when you personally come to terms with where all Intelligence comes from, in the first place. To comprehend this mindset you might find what Albert Einstein stated to be useful:

"The world we have created today as a result of our thinking thus far has problems which cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we created them,"

en.wikiquote.org... We must start thinking on a different level when considering "Savants".

I suppose we took a major step when we stopped allowing them to be labeled "Idiots". In my opinion Savants are actually the normal state of the being side of human. But we all must wear the mask of ignorance, except sometimes the mask is too small to cover the total ness of our "Shining" beings.

To those who wish to throw thinly veiled insults, I give you this.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly

And yes, I think Einstein had a touch of Savant-ism.

reply to post by NarcolepticBuddha


Excellent Thread! One of the better threads that I have read on ATS in a while.

Thanks for taking the time and research to share an unusual topic. Ah Yes, The Gifted.

S&F :