came across some videos of kim peek tonite

he is the autistic savant that rainman was based on

when he reads a book, left eye reads the left page, right eye, the right page

and it only gets more intereting that that!

http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant/kimpeek_highres.wmv

or a shorter video

http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant/peektammet_highres.wmv

super interesting when u realise what the human brain is capable of, and how little of its potential, that most of us use (or that we waste on social skills, when we could be power learners)

http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant/kimpeek.cfm

incredible ability

i'd rather go for a surf though

autistic savant

i want photographic memory :(

someone should give him a book with the even pages from one book and the odd pages from a completely different book and see if he just sees it as two books

Apparently he doesn't understand any of it... even though he can recall it perfectly... or so "medical incredible" said.

Even more crazy was the guy on afterwards... they were like "can you hold up 3 fingers" and he couldn't even do it, needed help to brush his teeth... yet he MASTERED 20 different instruments.

Insane.

wonder how "full" his brain is.

I remember reading about the human brain and came to understand that the human brain is fantastic at storing data, but isnt that good at retrieving data.

you can train yourself to read like that though, cant you? At least I thought that was one of the methods of speed reading, maybe im remembering wrong.

All the other stuff is nuts though. Its hard to fathom how it is, everyone commenting on the not being able to do simple stuff but can do the amazing stuff are maybe thinking about it from the perspectice of how they think about things, it must be very very different for savants.

edit: So it wasnt all that clear to me but were they implying that he could also play those songs on the piano perfectly?

last edited by qmass at 23:03:33 11/Aug/06

edit: So it wasnt all that clear to me but were they implying that he could also play those songs on the piano perfectly?

I belive so yes, ie never looking at sheet music.

negative, they were implying he had perfect pitch and could say when the notes were wrong. perfect pitch means he can hit the right keys for the notes he hears, and could remember every song he has ever heard, and every note in it, so when someone in the orchestra messed up, he'd stand up and ask what is wrong with them

i highly doubt he can play the piano, you can learn all the theory you like, but unless you train your hands to actually move and hit the right notes properly, you won't be able to put any of what you learned to use

that was the second time he had sat in front of a piano, i really doubt he was able to play more than a few notes with one hand (which he did in the video)

At least I thought that was one of the methods of speed reading, maybe im remembering wrong.

i thought with speed reading u just learn to skip the unimportant words ie skimming.

that was the second time he had sat in front of a piano, i really doubt he was able to play more than a few notes with one hand (which he did in the video)

yeah, I couldnt hear s***. But I thought I could hear him playing a classical song I had heard before but wasnt sure....

with speed reading you learn to read in blocks, so instead of seeing 2 or 3 words at a time, you see sentences, and with more practice, paragraphs ... and in this guy's case, books

I am so glad this thread was posted. I googled a bunch of stuff about savants last night.

It's incomprehensible what they can accomplish.

Anyway, reading the paper today and who has released a book? One Daniel Tammet. The man in the second video who meets peek. "Born on a blue day". Might pick that one up today.

They had a story on tv about this type of thing a while ago (60 minutes / abc, not sure) talking about autistic kids IIRC and how this guy could play the piano before he could do anything else. He was also able to pick up exactly what notes were being played at the same time. For example, if you pressed ten keys at once on the piano he could repeat exactly what you did. Most of us can only recognise about 3 tones at the same time. Yet, if you asked him to hold up three fingers he couldn't do it.

As amazing as this kid is, realistically your tape recorder and a photocopier could do exactly the same thing as he could. The guess the point is that yes it is amazing but really would you sacrified your entire personality etc just so you could ...be a tape recorder or a photocopier or calculator? I personally wouldn't. Those poor kids...imagine what it must be like for thier parents to bring up children with this (or any kind of) disability must be heart breaking :(.

I agree, like with Daniel tammet, he is the least 'disabled', but still has some trouble with social skills, like empathy. He just doesn't 'get' some manerisms. Also had trouble brushing his teeth and shaving etc. being as that his brain is so hyper attentive to all details going on around him.

Even so, these guys doing what they do is the equivelant of someone running the 400m in under 15secs. It's just astounding. I am honestly surprised more mainstream attention is not given to them. (Ofcourse that is not necessarily a good thing for them).

Also interesting is that there do not appear to be any women with the syndrome?

there are female autistic savants

Yeah I saw that Crunch... I thought it was amazing how she was talking to the older guy who was obviously complete spaz, but she goes "Can you play Fur Elise?" and he does it, then instantly she goes "Can you play Fur Elise as if Mozart wrote it?". That was bloody amazing.

Holy s*** that's awesome.

there are female autistic savants

ah, indeed. I won't believe every little thing I read on the net now ;)

Watch the Stephen Wiltshire one... he had a 45 minute helicopter ride above Rome... then he had 3 days to do a 15ft panaramic (sp?) picture from memory.

Absolutely mind blowing.

Wow, that's awesome! I hadn't heard of that before.

Female autism is rarer then male, and hence female savants are even rarer, it can happen tho.

I watched that document on the guy who could paint a piccy. It was part of a story about Dr. Snyder, cool guy.

The savant pretty much drew a panaramic picture of Londan that was almost totally accurate, soooo much detail even the crumbled gargoyle type thingies..

I can't get the second vid to play:/ Doesn't work at all in Media Player Classic, and only gives sound in WMP.

i highly doubt he can play the piano, you can learn all the theory you like, but unless you train your hands to actually move and hit the right notes properly, you won't be able to put any of what you learned to use

that was the second time he had sat in front of a piano, i really doubt he was able to play more than a few notes with one hand (which he did in the video)

Piano is just maths. A piano is very logically set out... so I wouldn't be overly surprised if he could play it very well.

How is playing a Piano math, please explain.

its all patterns greazy

beats are math also

sure its all paterns, like a major chord is 1,3,5 of the scale etc, but you still need to learn how to physically play the thing. it would make it easier having perfect pitch and being able to memorise all the chords patterns instantly, but you still need to know the technique.

I agree, but I think he could do this after having only sat at it once.

yeah i've read a few things on autistic savants, truly amazing. But i'm telling you now, he wouldn't be playing those piano pieces, i don't doubt that a savant would be able to learn extremely complicated music theory in no time at all, but to play is a complete different story, it does require a lot of memory power which he has but he wouldnt have the skill with his hands to play the pieces.

I disagree. If he has perfect pitch and can make complex calculations then he could easily do it.

Would you ever have thought someone could read two pages of a book at the same time with different eyes, and only take 8 seconds per page when it would take someone else 3 minutes?

totally agree with billy.
i dont think he'd be able to create his own masterpiece but playing someone else masterpiece fo sure.