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Beautiful Autistic Minds

CelticRose said:
For example, if I had the drawing ability and tried to reproduce, say, the parking lot and buildings as seen from my apartment window, I would "look" at an image of the scene with my "mind's eye" and draw from that. My memory of the parking lot, etc., is an actual image. I can "see" it, and there are no gaps.
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You don't see any gaps, but they are still there. Your mind just fills them in with things that seem to fit into the context. Depending on your experience with the context, it may fill in things that are actually there because many things exist in predictable places.

I've read that autistic people often "think in pictures". Why wouldn't this guy be doing the same thing, only with much greater detail?
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Without a doubt is he thinking in pictures, and doing so in great detail.

It seems to me that he takes a mental photograph and then draws the scene from that mental image.
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This seems unlikely to me, not just because there is no reason to think a human mind can work like that, but also from the way he draws and the kind of mistakes he makes. He starts with drawing prominent buildings and fills in the rest. That could mean he remembers prominent buildings best and reconstructs the scene with a mixture of memories of details and experience in how cities are laid out. No doubt he has a lot of experience, so he makes it seem effortless.

To see what I mean, look at this painting of Oxford Circus in London. I am pretty sure there is something wrong with the picture.

He correctly showed the vehicles driving on the left side of the street, but the way the traffic lights are pointed seems only to make sense for traffic driving on the right side. He remembered that there were traffic lights, but he seems to have used his experience with other cities to determine what he thought was the correct side to paint them.
 
Hmmm. Interesting pont..

What I haven't seen that would be useful is a like-for-like photographic comparison of the same views he has drawn.
 
Earthborn said:
You don't see any gaps, but they are still there. Your mind just fills them in with things that seem to fit into the context. Depending on your experience with the context, it may fill in things that are actually there because many things exist in predictable places.

Without a doubt is he thinking in pictures, and doing so in great detail.

This seems unlikely to me, not just because there is no reason to think a human mind can work like that, but also from the way he draws and the kind of mistakes he makes. He starts with drawing prominent buildings and fills in the rest. That could mean he remembers prominent buildings best and reconstructs the scene with a mixture of memories of details and experience in how cities are laid out. No doubt he has a lot of experience, so he makes it seem effortless.

To see what I mean, look at this painting of Oxford Circus in London. I am pretty sure there is something wrong with the picture.

He correctly showed the vehicles driving on the left side of the street, but the way the traffic lights are pointed seems only to make sense for traffic driving on the right side. He remembered that there were traffic lights, but he seems to have used his experience with other cities to determine what he thought was the correct side to paint them.
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The vehicles also appear to be... Randomly spread out over the streets. There's no real "structure" in the image, it's like... A dream?
 
quarky said:
I can learn a 3 chord song in a few days, but to recall a Mozart piece, on first hearing, and repeat it, note for note...well...

Its paranormal. Or amazing news for the rest of us: We too can do these things. The human brain is ready for work we can't imagine.
odd that its often autistics that show such extreme abilities.

The MDC should be won by one of these freaks.
They have paranormal abilities.
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Ehm, no. An autistic brain is different. There is nothing supernatural about the abilities of some Savants. They are not, and should not be, eligible to win the MDC with any claim that comes from being a Savant.

Hearing a song once and replaying it perfectly after one listen is quite amazing, but it is not supernatural, and i don't believe it is something everyone can learn.

Do realize that with this kind of memory comes a lot of deficits in other areas. It isn't just a gain. The abilities that some Savants show and the deficits they have are linked.

Some savants don't need to count, they can just look at a random number of objects and say "there are 2156 pencils on the floor in this room", without counting.

Some savants can memorize a view and draw it more or less perfectly(different subjects different abilities).

Some savants can learn a new language in a week(or less).

Some savants can memorize a Mozart opera in one listen.

No savants (afaik, please do correct me if i'm wrong) can do all of the above.

No savants can do any of the above without having some kind of mental deficit, be it autistic or otherwise.

With all this said, while the abilities may be abnormal, i find solace and wonder in these abilities.
 
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Earthborn said:
He correctly showed the vehicles driving on the left side of the street, but the way the traffic lights are pointed seems only to make sense for traffic driving on the right side. He remembered that there were traffic lights, but he seems to have used his experience with other cities to determine what he thought was the correct side to paint them.
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Or maybe he just doesn't care about cars.
 
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