Are any of you Savants? If so, what type/skill?

Page 1 of 2 [ 28 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

CCninja86
Butterfly
Butterfly

Joined: 17 Jul 2016
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Posts: 12
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

20 Jul 2016, 4:30 pm

I have an Eidetic (Photographic) Memory, as apparent by my signature :)


_________________
20-year-old Asperger's Savant with an Eidetic (Photographic) Memory

Diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in my early teens (13-15 years)

Diagnosed with ADD (non-hyperactive) as a child

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 104 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 98 of 200
You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits

Studying for a Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences

Hobbies are gaming and programming, interests include technology.


ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 72
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,168

20 Jul 2016, 4:58 pm

I've got the detail-focused processing thing in spades, which is mooted as the cause of savant syndrome, but I wouldn't quite call myself a savant. I just do impressive technical things sometimes, like when I was much younger I made a multi-track tape recorder from old domestic machines without any formal education in electronics. I became increasingly wary of my nerdy skills taking me away from a "proper" life, like the Beatles' "Nowhere Man," and I was afraid of ending up lonely like him, so ever since then I've tempered myself and tried my best to be more of a rounded person.



CCninja86
Butterfly
Butterfly

Joined: 17 Jul 2016
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Posts: 12
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

20 Jul 2016, 5:17 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
I've got the detail-focused processing thing in spades, which is mooted as the cause of savant syndrome, but I wouldn't quite call myself a savant. I just do impressive technical things sometimes, like when I was much younger I made a multi-track tape recorder from old domestic machines without any formal education in electronics. I became increasingly wary of my nerdy skills taking me away from a "proper" life, like the Beatles' "Nowhere Man," and I was afraid of ending up lonely like him, so ever since then I've tempered myself and tried my best to be more of a rounded person.


Wow, that's awesome what you did making the tape recorder without any education in electronics. I've discovered that my specialised non-Savant skill is coding. I seem to be able to just naturally pick up any language after learning the basics, and can even simulate/plan a program in my head without having to write anything down, it simply just comes to me and makes sense. I have a formal education in it now, and am still studying it, but I taught myself how to program in HTML/CSS/JavaScript, jQuery, and Android solely on my own, Vanilla Java was taught at my university. I also now know basic OpenGL, PHP, and C++, those three were/are also being taught at my university.


_________________
20-year-old Asperger's Savant with an Eidetic (Photographic) Memory

Diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in my early teens (13-15 years)

Diagnosed with ADD (non-hyperactive) as a child

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 104 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 98 of 200
You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits

Studying for a Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences

Hobbies are gaming and programming, interests include technology.


StationEleven
Butterfly
Butterfly

Joined: 7 Jul 2016
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 15
Location: Canada

20 Jul 2016, 5:41 pm

Yes. I work in law and my skill is in the memorization of legislation, case law or otherwise. My memory is photographic and I quote numerous parts of legislation or case law from memory.



CCninja86
Butterfly
Butterfly

Joined: 17 Jul 2016
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Posts: 12
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

20 Jul 2016, 5:44 pm

StationEleven wrote:
Yes. I work in law and my skill is in the memorization of legislation, case law or otherwise. My memory is photographic and I quote numerous parts of legislation or case law from memory.


Nice. I think my photographic memory is what enables me to simulate/plan code in my head without writing anything down. I can just simply visualise the code (or it's actually more like pseudo-code which I visualise, as I ignore any irrelevant attributes like proper variable names, as those come up when you actually write the code), and then use my knowledge of the language to essentially read through said visualised code in my head and analyse what will and won't work in it.


_________________
20-year-old Asperger's Savant with an Eidetic (Photographic) Memory

Diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in my early teens (13-15 years)

Diagnosed with ADD (non-hyperactive) as a child

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 104 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 98 of 200
You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits

Studying for a Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences

Hobbies are gaming and programming, interests include technology.


CockneyRebel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Jul 2004
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 117,304
Location: In my little Olympic World of peace and love

20 Jul 2016, 6:34 pm

I'm a very artistic and creative person.


_________________
The Family Enigma


B19
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Jan 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 9,993
Location: New Zealand

20 Jul 2016, 6:42 pm

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Are you aware of our compatriot Nigel Richards? He has disclosed AS and appears to have extreme savant abilities for lexicology:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/new ... d=11485116

To win the French scrabble national championship as he did last year, never having studied nor spoken French until weeks before entering it is an extraordinary achievement and instance of AS memory savantism applied to language.

Google his name if he interests you, there are many links and articles about him and his career as a champion Scrabble Player



untilwereturn
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 1 Aug 2014
Age: 53
Gender: Male
Posts: 386
Location: Tennessee

21 Jul 2016, 11:45 am

I would not call myself a savant at all, but I do have disproportionately strong verbal skills - especially in writing. I'm only average (at best) with respect to most other skills.



AspE
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Dec 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,114

21 Jul 2016, 12:01 pm

I can draw photo-realistically, from life, it's easy for me. But I usually don't because I think that style is boring.



Chichikov
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Mar 2016
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,151
Location: UK

21 Jul 2016, 1:58 pm

Personally I wouldn't class having an eidetic memory as being a savant, I'd class it as...well...having an eidetic memory :)



ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 72
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,168

21 Jul 2016, 3:06 pm

CCninja86 wrote:
Wow, that's awesome what you did making the tape recorder without any education in electronics.

Thanks, I should admit they taught me a tiny bit at school in physics, but nothing about how audio circuits worked. And it took me a long time to suss it all out. Compared to your photographic memory and computing skills, my Aspie super-powers aren't that impressive.



CCninja86
Butterfly
Butterfly

Joined: 17 Jul 2016
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Posts: 12
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

21 Jul 2016, 3:11 pm

Chichikov wrote:
Personally I wouldn't class having an eidetic memory as being a savant, I'd class it as...well...having an eidetic memory :)


It's classed as a savant skill, so I think it's up to personal preference really.


_________________
20-year-old Asperger's Savant with an Eidetic (Photographic) Memory

Diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in my early teens (13-15 years)

Diagnosed with ADD (non-hyperactive) as a child

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 104 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 98 of 200
You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits

Studying for a Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences

Hobbies are gaming and programming, interests include technology.


Ichinin
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 3 Apr 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,653
Location: A cold place with lots of blondes.

21 Jul 2016, 3:18 pm

I think eidetic memory is quite common in our world, still it's something that normal people don't understand.

When i tell NT's that i can visualize things in my head, i can "see things" as if it was almost like watching a movie, i can think of things and rotate them around (if i know what they look like in 3D), they are gobsmacked and wonder what planet i come from.


_________________
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" (Carl Sagan)


CCninja86
Butterfly
Butterfly

Joined: 17 Jul 2016
Age: 28
Gender: Male
Posts: 12
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

21 Jul 2016, 3:59 pm

Ichinin wrote:
I think eidetic memory is quite common in our world, still it's something that normal people don't understand.

When i tell NT's that i can visualize things in my head, i can "see things" as if it was almost like watching a movie, i can think of things and rotate them around (if i know what they look like in 3D), they are gobsmacked and wonder what planet i come from.


From what I've read, it's not common at all. The statistics I found said that roughly 2-10% of children have it, and that it's almost non-existent in adults. For the general population, not as certain about those statistics, but the estimates I have seen said between 1-2%, which is actually quite a lot when you consider that's 1-2% of several billion people, but of still makes it very rare.


_________________
20-year-old Asperger's Savant with an Eidetic (Photographic) Memory

Diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in my early teens (13-15 years)

Diagnosed with ADD (non-hyperactive) as a child

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 104 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 98 of 200
You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits

Studying for a Bachelor of Computer and Information Sciences

Hobbies are gaming and programming, interests include technology.


B19
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Jan 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 9,993
Location: New Zealand

21 Jul 2016, 4:11 pm

If those percentages are actual (rather than a research artifact from sampling or other methodological errors) then it would be interesting to know what proportion of the 2%-10% are AS people, and what proportion are neurotypical or other. If for example the 2%-10% were found to be predominantly AS subjects, that would suggest a more nuanced approach to research might reveal very different and more informative results. We can't and don't know if this neurotypical/neuroatypical difference is real or relevant at present, (as far as I know no such research has been done in any convincing way).



Edenthiel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Sep 2014
Age: 57
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,820
Location: S.F Bay Area

21 Jul 2016, 5:46 pm

I wasn't privy to my test results as child, but later testing I did indicated a very high IQ, eidetic memory and some sort of extreme pattern recognition abilities. Abstract, visual, temporal, spatial, logical, and auditory, IIR. Works nicely for playing with large, messy data sets and reshaping them to extract meaning, which is what I find myself doing to make a living. It's all fairly ironic since I also have things like timing-based audio processing disorders and a degree of face blindness among other sensory processing issues.


_________________
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
―Carl Sagan