Re: [agi] Accidental Genius
Right on. Everything I've read esp. Grandin, suggests strongly autism is crucially hypersensitivity rather than an emotional disorder. If every time the normal person touched someone, they got the equivalent of an electric shock, they'd stay away from people too. [Thanks for your previous links too]. Bryan: We discuss how excessive neuronal processing may render the world painfully intense when the neocortex is affected and even aversive when the amygdala is affected, leading to social and environmental withdrawal. --- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Accidental Genius
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 --- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Accidental Genius
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 3:02 AM, Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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. ... Anyhow it is very interesting. Perhaps savantism is an attention mechanism disorder? Like, too much attention. Another possibility is that the analytic and microscopic detail method of thinking doesn't scale well to real life (particularly in modelling OTHER minds), which might be why autistics are often unable to function in every day society without assistance, and why non-autistic people may have the capability to display similar characteristics with proper stimulation of certain parts of the brain, possibly disabling a generality or abstraction system. J --- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [agi] Accidental Genius
On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anyhow it is very interesting. Perhaps savantism is an attention mechanism disorder? Like, too much attention. Yes. Autism is a devastating neurodevelopmental disorder with a polygenetic predisposition that seems to be triggered by multiple envi ronmental factors during embryonic and/or early postnatal life. While significant advances have been made in identifying the neuronal structures and cells affected, a unifying theory that could explain the manifold autistic symptoms has still not emerged. Based on recent synaptic, cellular, molecular, microcircuit, and behavioral results obtained with the valproic acid (VPA) rat model of autism, we propose here a unifying hypothesis where the core pathology of the autistic brain is hyper-reactivity and hyper-plasticity of local neuronal circuits. Such excessive neuronal processing in circumscribed circuits is suggested to lead to hyper-perception, hyper-attention, and hyper-memory, which may lie at the heart of most autistic symptoms. In this view, the autistic spectrum are disorders of hyper-functionality, which turns debilitating, as opposed to disorders of hypo-functionality, as is often assumed. We discuss how excessive neuronal processing may render the world painfully intense when the neocortex is affected and even aversive when the amygdala is affected, leading to social and environmental withdrawal. Excessive neuronal learning is also hypothesized to rapidly lock down the individual into a small repertoire of secure behavioral routines that are obsessively repeated. We further discuss the key autistic neuropathologies and several of the main theories of autism and re-interpret them in the light of the hypothesized Intense World Syndrome. http://heybryan.org/intense_world_syndrome.html See also the last email I sent out on this subject: http://heybryan.org/pipermail/hplusroadmap/2008-May/000466.html - Bryan --- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
