The Hidden Savant in You | Psychology Today - 0 views
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Savants can perform extraordinary cognitive feats much like trained experts, but unlike experts they usually cannot describe what makes them so talented, seemingly relying on intuition rather than conscious deliberation to quickly make choices.
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he consensus among many researchers is that intuitions are judgments made by unconscious processes in the brain.
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Studies have shown that inhibiting activity in certain areas of the brain can facilitate solving geometric puzzles.
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Allan Snyder has used transcranial direct current stimulation (DCS) to alter the activity both in the left and right hemispheres.
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DCS was applied for only ten minutes, specifically to decrease activity in the left hemisphere and increase activity in the right hemisphere, 40 percent of subjects were able to solve the puzzle.
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Tasks like solving the nine-dots puzzle are notoriously difficult because of our brains are structured in such a way as to limit creativity.
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The left hemisphere is thought to govern the role that right-brain activity may play in cognition. Inhibiting activity in the left hemisphere of the brain is thought to remove the predisposition to interpret random elements in meaningful ways, allowing for more creative solutions generated in the right brain to make it into consciousness.
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Savants thus may have a greater degree of conscious access to judgments of unconscious processes than non-savants.
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As we become more skilled at manipulating brain processes through psychoactive drugs or electronic devices, we may be able to invoke savant-like skills in neurotypical people.