基本説明
Examines the current cognitive theories, the brain's basis for special talents, the representation of autism and talent in fiction.
Full Description
Autism spectrum conditions affect as many as one in a hundred people. One of the most startling aspects of this social-communication disorder is the high rate of special, or savant, skills. Around 10% of people with autism are thought to have a striking skill in music, art, calculation, or memory. So why might people with severe social-communication impairments be predisposed to develop perfect pitch, photographic-like memory, or lightening calculation? This book explores the puzzle of talent and its close association with autism. Expert contributors from many areas of both science and the arts describe the latest research - using brain scanning, experimental tasks, twin studies, and case histories of extraordinary savants. It considers the many puzzling questions that the relationship between autism and talent raises: Do similar genetic effects predispose for talent and for autism? What is the role of obsessive practice? Could we all become savants? What is special in the brains of people with savant skills? Is detail-focus at the root of talent in individuals with and without autism?
How can talents best be fostered in children and adults with social and communication difficulties? With contributions from some of the leading authorities in the world, the book tries to unravel the mystery of savant skills in autism, as well as reflecting on the very different way that people with autism (with or without talent) see and understand the world. It will be of great interest to a broad readership across the sciences, arts, and humanities
Contents
1. Introduction: The beautiful otherness of the autistic mind ; 2. The savant syndrome: an extraordinary condition. ; 3. Savant skills in autism: psychometric approaches and parental reports ; 4. What aspects of autism predispose to talent? ; 5. Talent in autism: hyper-systemizing, hyper-attentin to detail, and sensory hypersensitivity ; 6. Enhanced perception in savant syndrome: patterns, structure, and creativity ; 7. Perception and appreception in autism: rejecting the inverse assumption ; 8. Explaining and inducing savant skills: privileged access to lower level, less processed information ; 9. Talent in the taxi: a model system for exploring expertise ; 10. Do calendrical savants use calculation to answer date questions? A functional magnetic resonance imaging study ; 11. A case study of a multiply talented savant with an autism spectrum disorder ; 12. Radical Cytoarchitecture and patterns of cortical connectivity in autism ; 13. How does visual thinking work in the mind of a person with autism?: A personal account ; 14. Assessing musical skills in autistic children who are not savants ; 15. Precocious realists: perceptual and cognitive characteristics associated with drawing talent in non-autistic children ; 16. Outsider Art and the Autistic Creator ; 17. Autistic Autobiography ; 18. Stereotypes of Autism
