Brad Paulsen wrote:
I happened to catch a program on National Geographic Channel today
entitled "Accidental Genius." It was quite interesting from an AGI
standpoint.
One of the researchers profiled has invented a device that, by sending
electromagnetic pulses through a person's skull to the appropriate spot
in the left hemisphere of that person's brain, can achieve behavior
similar to that of an idiot savant in a non-brain-damaged person (in the
session shown, this was a volunteer college student).
Before being "zapped" by the device, the student is taken through a
series of exercises. One is to draw a horse from memory. The other is
to read aloud a very familiar "saying" with a slight grammatical mistake
in it (the word "the" is duplicated, i.e., "the the," in the saying --
sorry I can't recall the saying used). Then the student is shown a
computer screen full of "dots" for about 1 second and asked to record
his best guess at how many dots there were. This exercise is repeated
several times (with different numbers of dots each time).
The student is then zapped by the electromagnetic pulse device for 15
minutes. It's kind of scary to watch the guy's face flinch
uncontrollably as each pulse is delivered. But, while he reported
feeling something, he claimed there was no pain or disorientation. His
language facilities were unimpaired (they zap a very particular spot in
the left hemisphere based on brain scans taken of idiot savants).
After being zapped, the exercises are repeated. The results were
impressive. The horse drawn after the zapping contained much more
detail and was much better rendered than the horse drawn before the
zapping. Before the zapping, the subject read the familiar saying
correctly (despite the duplicate "the"). After zapping, the duplicate
"the" stopped him dead in his tracks. He definitely noticed it. The
dots were really impressive though. Before being zapped, he got the
count right in only two cases. After being zapped, he got it right in
four cases.
The effects of the electromagnetic zapping on the left hemisphere fade
within a few hours. Don't know about you, but I'd want that in writing.
You can watch the episode on-line here:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/tv-schedule. It's not scheduled
for repeat showing anytime soon.
That's not a direct link (I couldn't find one). When you get to that
Web page, navigate to Wed, May 7 at 3PM and click the "More" button
under the picture. Unfortunately, the "full-motion" video is the size
of a large postage stamp. The "full screen" view uses "stop motion" (at
least i did on my laptop using a DSL-based WiFi hotspot). The audio is
the same in both versions.
Cheers,
Brad
I haven't seen the program, but the method is (unles I am mistaken)
called "transcranial magnetic stimulation" or TMS. It zaps the brain
with a magnetic pulse, which scrambles signals and systems for a while,
but as far as anyone can tell, has no lasting effects.
I have a vague memory of coming across this research to duplicate savant
behavior, and I seem to remember thinking that the conclusion seems to
be that there is a part of the brain that is responsible for 'damping
down' some other mechanism that loves to analyze everything in
microscopic detail. It appears that the brain could be set up in such a
way that there are two opponent processes, with one being capable of
phenomenal powers of analysis, while the other keeps the first under
control and prevents it from overwhelming the other things that the
system has to do.
This is a very thought-provoking example of a process that is not (as
far I know) duplicated in AGI systems. Note carefully: there is not
necessarily any 'intelligence' in the mechanism that enforces the
balance (the part that was presumably knocked out), it is probably just
a blind regulator. This means that the regulator would control the
other processes in a somewhat nondeterministic manner, imposing its
effects by a diffuse control parameter.
Anyhow it is very interesting. Perhaps savantism is an attention
mechanism disorder? Like, too much attention.
Richard Loosemore
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agi
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