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看过影片《雨人》的人，一定不会忘记那个患有自闭症、却拥有超常计算能力的“雨人”。“雨人”的原型是美国犹他州盐湖城的金·皮克。目前，美国国家航空航天局（NASA）正在对皮克的大脑进行研究，试图通过大脑扫描图像破解他神脑的秘密。
It was a prodigious1 feat. Yet for Peek—the real-life “savant” on whom Dustin Hoffman’s character in the film Rain Man is based—such recall only gives a glimpse of his powers. He knows 9 000 books off by heart; he can direct people around US cities from maps he has memorised years ago; and he has total recall of the dates of all major world events.
Now studies of Peek’s abilities are being used by scientists to shed intriguing2 light on the human mind, and to open the way for men and women to exploit far more of their intellectual potential, as the latest issue of Scientific American reveals.
“Kim’s story tells us that the human brain is far more flexible than we had thought,” said Darold Treffert, a psychiatrist and coauthor of the Scientific American paper told The Observer. “Like many other savants, he has suffered disability in one area of his brain, but has compensated3 by acquiring remarkable new abilities in other areas. This shows we all have considerable hidden intellectual potential. By studying Kim and other savants, we can learn how to tap those powers.” This potential has been of particular interest to NASA—currently carrying out lengthy electronic scans of Kim’s brain in its attempts to understand how astronauts are using their brains while on deep space missions.
Kim—now 54—was born with a malformed4 cerebellum5, at the base of his brain, and lacks a corpus6 callosum, the thick bundle of nerves that normally connects the brain’s two hemispheres. As a child he was assumed to be suffering from severe mental retardation.
Only later was his condition found to be more complex. He had superb abilities at arithmetic but could not deal with the abstractions of mathematics. In 1988 he was given an IQ rating of 87, well below average. Yet some of his subscores were in the genius bracket, while others plunged into the mentally retarded range.
Kim has poor physical coordination, cannot button his shirts but has remarkable memory power and has started to develop as an accomplished pianist in the last two years. This latest development—in a man in his 50s with large chunks of his brain missing—is particularly significant, added Treffert. “His brain is still adapting to his condition, even in mid-life.”
One key to understanding Kim’s condition is that his right and left brain hemispheres are not connected. Our left brain, in which our linguistic prowess has its centre, tends to dominate our right. That has not happened with Kim, however, suggesting the possibility that his right brain has been allowed to develop more freely and reach a greater potential than normal.
Kim displays little personal interest in people outside the arithmetical details of their lives. When I talked to him by phone in his home in Salt Lake City last week, he asked for my birthday. I told him. “Ah, you were born on a Sunday, your next birthday will be a Sunday, and you are scheduled to retire on a Thursday,” he replied correctly.
“He remembers 98 per cent of what he reads,” said his father Fran. “It’s like downloading data on to a hard disk—except his never crashes.”
这是一部电影巨作。但对皮克来说——达斯丁·霍夫曼在影片《雨人》中扮演的主人公就是以现实生活中的他为原型——回忆这部电影只能向人们提供一个关于他的超常能力的片断。他能背诵9 000本书；他能根据几年前记忆的地图为人们指出美国大小城市的位置；他能记住世界历史上所有重大事件发生的确切日期。
最近美国科学家揭露，科学家们通过研究皮克超常能力来解开人类智力的更多奥秘，并为人类挖掘更多的智力潜能开辟了道路。
“皮克的故事告诉我们，人类大脑比我们想象的更加灵活。”精神病专家、《科学美国》杂志的作者之一达罗·特雷费特告诉观察员，“就像许多奇才一样，他的大脑有一个部位不具备正常的能力，但是大脑其他方面却因此获得了新的、超常的能力。这表明我们都有隐藏的智力潜能。通过对皮克和其他奇才的研究，我们可以获得开发大脑智力潜能的方法。”
美国宇航局一直对这一潜能有特别的兴趣——当前他们使用超长电磁波对皮克的大脑进行扫描来获得宇航员在进行外太空任务时是如何使用大脑的相关数据。
现年54岁的皮克在出生时大脑底部的小脑天生畸形，而且还没有“数据储存区”——通常情况下连接两个半球的密集的神经束。在他小时候，他被认为有严重的智力缺陷。
后来人们发现他的情况更加复杂。他在数学计算上有超常的能力，但却不能应对抽象的数学概念。1988年他的IQ测试分数是87分，这比平均水平低很多。 在某些方面他的分数高得像个天才，然而在某些方面却智力低下。
皮克的身体协调性很差，他不能自己扣纽扣，但却有着超强的记忆力，而且最近两年他已发展到能指法娴熟地演奏钢琴。他最近的这个发展——对于一个50多岁而且脑部有大块儿缺失的人来说——具有特别重要的意义。特雷费特还说：“他的大脑还能适应他自己的情况，即使在他中年的时候。”
了解皮克的这种特殊情况的一个关键就是他的大脑左右半球并不是连接在一起的。左半球的中心部分操纵着人们的语言能力，并且控制着右半球。然而皮克的情况并不是这样，他的右半球部分能更加自由地发挥出不同寻常的潜能。
皮克只对那些与人们生活有关的算术细节感兴趣。当他上周在盐湖城的家里与我通电话时，他问及我的生日，我告诉了他。“噢，你生在一个星期天，你下一次生日还会是在星期天。按照预定你是在星期二退休。”他准确地说。
他的父亲弗兰说：“他能记得所读过书的98%的内容。这就像把数据下载到硬盘上一样——除非他的系统崩溃了。”
任长秀 摘自 CRIOnline
It was a prodigious1 feat. Yet for Peek—the real-life “savant” on whom Dustin Hoffman’s character in the film Rain Man is based—such recall only gives a glimpse of his powers. He knows 9 000 books off by heart; he can direct people around US cities from maps he has memorised years ago; and he has total recall of the dates of all major world events.
Now studies of Peek’s abilities are being used by scientists to shed intriguing2 light on the human mind, and to open the way for men and women to exploit far more of their intellectual potential, as the latest issue of Scientific American reveals.
“Kim’s story tells us that the human brain is far more flexible than we had thought,” said Darold Treffert, a psychiatrist and coauthor of the Scientific American paper told The Observer. “Like many other savants, he has suffered disability in one area of his brain, but has compensated3 by acquiring remarkable new abilities in other areas. This shows we all have considerable hidden intellectual potential. By studying Kim and other savants, we can learn how to tap those powers.” This potential has been of particular interest to NASA—currently carrying out lengthy electronic scans of Kim’s brain in its attempts to understand how astronauts are using their brains while on deep space missions.
Kim—now 54—was born with a malformed4 cerebellum5, at the base of his brain, and lacks a corpus6 callosum, the thick bundle of nerves that normally connects the brain’s two hemispheres. As a child he was assumed to be suffering from severe mental retardation.
Only later was his condition found to be more complex. He had superb abilities at arithmetic but could not deal with the abstractions of mathematics. In 1988 he was given an IQ rating of 87, well below average. Yet some of his subscores were in the genius bracket, while others plunged into the mentally retarded range.
Kim has poor physical coordination, cannot button his shirts but has remarkable memory power and has started to develop as an accomplished pianist in the last two years. This latest development—in a man in his 50s with large chunks of his brain missing—is particularly significant, added Treffert. “His brain is still adapting to his condition, even in mid-life.”
One key to understanding Kim’s condition is that his right and left brain hemispheres are not connected. Our left brain, in which our linguistic prowess has its centre, tends to dominate our right. That has not happened with Kim, however, suggesting the possibility that his right brain has been allowed to develop more freely and reach a greater potential than normal.
Kim displays little personal interest in people outside the arithmetical details of their lives. When I talked to him by phone in his home in Salt Lake City last week, he asked for my birthday. I told him. “Ah, you were born on a Sunday, your next birthday will be a Sunday, and you are scheduled to retire on a Thursday,” he replied correctly.
“He remembers 98 per cent of what he reads,” said his father Fran. “It’s like downloading data on to a hard disk—except his never crashes.”
这是一部电影巨作。但对皮克来说——达斯丁·霍夫曼在影片《雨人》中扮演的主人公就是以现实生活中的他为原型——回忆这部电影只能向人们提供一个关于他的超常能力的片断。他能背诵9 000本书；他能根据几年前记忆的地图为人们指出美国大小城市的位置；他能记住世界历史上所有重大事件发生的确切日期。
最近美国科学家揭露，科学家们通过研究皮克超常能力来解开人类智力的更多奥秘，并为人类挖掘更多的智力潜能开辟了道路。
“皮克的故事告诉我们，人类大脑比我们想象的更加灵活。”精神病专家、《科学美国》杂志的作者之一达罗·特雷费特告诉观察员，“就像许多奇才一样，他的大脑有一个部位不具备正常的能力，但是大脑其他方面却因此获得了新的、超常的能力。这表明我们都有隐藏的智力潜能。通过对皮克和其他奇才的研究，我们可以获得开发大脑智力潜能的方法。”
美国宇航局一直对这一潜能有特别的兴趣——当前他们使用超长电磁波对皮克的大脑进行扫描来获得宇航员在进行外太空任务时是如何使用大脑的相关数据。
现年54岁的皮克在出生时大脑底部的小脑天生畸形，而且还没有“数据储存区”——通常情况下连接两个半球的密集的神经束。在他小时候，他被认为有严重的智力缺陷。
后来人们发现他的情况更加复杂。他在数学计算上有超常的能力，但却不能应对抽象的数学概念。1988年他的IQ测试分数是87分，这比平均水平低很多。 在某些方面他的分数高得像个天才，然而在某些方面却智力低下。
皮克的身体协调性很差，他不能自己扣纽扣，但却有着超强的记忆力，而且最近两年他已发展到能指法娴熟地演奏钢琴。他最近的这个发展——对于一个50多岁而且脑部有大块儿缺失的人来说——具有特别重要的意义。特雷费特还说：“他的大脑还能适应他自己的情况，即使在他中年的时候。”
了解皮克的这种特殊情况的一个关键就是他的大脑左右半球并不是连接在一起的。左半球的中心部分操纵着人们的语言能力，并且控制着右半球。然而皮克的情况并不是这样，他的右半球部分能更加自由地发挥出不同寻常的潜能。
皮克只对那些与人们生活有关的算术细节感兴趣。当他上周在盐湖城的家里与我通电话时，他问及我的生日，我告诉了他。“噢，你生在一个星期天，你下一次生日还会是在星期天。按照预定你是在星期二退休。”他准确地说。
他的父亲弗兰说：“他能记得所读过书的98%的内容。这就像把数据下载到硬盘上一样——除非他的系统崩溃了。”
任长秀 摘自 CRIOnline