1
00:00:00,520 --> 00:00:03,600
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:14,600
Speaker 1: where smart happens. Hi. I'm Marshall Brain with today's question,

3
00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:20,040
Speaker 1: could you have a savant hidden inside your brain? Savants

4
00:00:20,120 --> 00:00:23,200
Speaker 1: have amazing skills. You may have seen them on the

5
00:00:23,239 --> 00:00:27,080
Speaker 1: news or in some kind of documentary. For example, they

6
00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:31,240
Speaker 1: might have the ability to draw or sculpt an incredible detail.

7
00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:34,960
Speaker 1: Or they might have photographic memories that allow them to

8
00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:38,800
Speaker 1: recall things just after one exposure to a book or

9
00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:42,080
Speaker 1: something like that. Or there's a guy who can recite

10
00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:45,920
Speaker 1: pi to twenty two thousand digits for a memory. Any

11
00:00:46,040 --> 00:00:49,920
Speaker 1: kind of thing like that seems amazing to normal human

12
00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:53,479
Speaker 1: beings because we can't even approach that sort of capability.

13
00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:56,880
Speaker 1: But is it possible that we all have some of

14
00:00:56,920 --> 00:01:02,200
Speaker 1: these capabilities embedded inside our brains and they're simply lying dormant,

15
00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:05,840
Speaker 1: or they're being overshadowed by other parts of our brains.

16
00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:09,199
Speaker 1: One of my favorite books of all time is called

17
00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:12,600
Speaker 1: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards,

18
00:01:12,680 --> 00:01:16,200
Speaker 1: and she gets it this from an interesting angle. Her

19
00:01:16,400 --> 00:01:20,479
Speaker 1: book's goal is to teach ordinary people how to draw,

20
00:01:20,720 --> 00:01:23,759
Speaker 1: and the way she does it is by teaching the

21
00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:27,160
Speaker 1: reader how to turn off the left side of the brain.

22
00:01:27,880 --> 00:01:30,800
Speaker 1: So she has this set of exercises in the book

23
00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:34,080
Speaker 1: that are designed to get the left side of the brain,

24
00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:36,600
Speaker 1: the verbal side of the brain, to shut up so

25
00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:38,840
Speaker 1: that the right side of the brain, which can do

26
00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:43,120
Speaker 1: the drawing part, can actually do its thing without interruption

27
00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:46,000
Speaker 1: from the left side. So, for example, one of her

28
00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:49,400
Speaker 1: exercises is to take a line drawing and just turn

29
00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:53,720
Speaker 1: it upside down and start sketching the upside down version.

30
00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:57,160
Speaker 1: And the idea is that when it's right side up,

31
00:01:57,440 --> 00:02:00,160
Speaker 1: the left side of the brain is chunking every thing

32
00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:02,960
Speaker 1: symbolically and saying, well, this is an eye and this

33
00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:05,360
Speaker 1: is a nose, and then the right side of the

34
00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:09,600
Speaker 1: brain can't really see what's going on and gets overshadowed

35
00:02:09,639 --> 00:02:13,440
Speaker 1: by this chunking. When you turn off the left side

36
00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:15,560
Speaker 1: of the brain by turning the picture upside down so

37
00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:18,880
Speaker 1: it can't recognize anything, what you're left with is the

38
00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:21,560
Speaker 1: right side of the brain being able to see the

39
00:02:21,639 --> 00:02:24,920
Speaker 1: actual line segments they are sitting there on the paper

40
00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:28,560
Speaker 1: and being able to copy them, and suddenly you can draw.

41
00:02:28,760 --> 00:02:33,320
Speaker 1: You can actually trace that picture, drawing it without actually

42
00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:37,520
Speaker 1: tracing it, You're you're seeing what's really there and drawing

43
00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:40,280
Speaker 1: what's really there without interruption from the left side of

44
00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:43,440
Speaker 1: the brain. It turns out that there's now a more

45
00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:46,800
Speaker 1: recent technique that's turning off the left side of the

46
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:52,359
Speaker 1: brain using something called transcranial magnetic stimulation. What that translates

47
00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:57,680
Speaker 1: into is high intensity magnetic pulses directed into the left

48
00:02:57,720 --> 00:03:01,200
Speaker 1: hemisphere that essentially this able it for a period of

49
00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:04,960
Speaker 1: time a few minutes. And when they do that, it

50
00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:08,840
Speaker 1: appears that we all do have savant capabilities that are

51
00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:11,079
Speaker 1: being overshadowed by the left side of the brain that

52
00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:15,920
Speaker 1: go beyond drawing. So, for example, they stimulate someone's brain

53
00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:20,880
Speaker 1: with magnetic pulses and this person can now suddenly count

54
00:03:21,040 --> 00:03:23,440
Speaker 1: things in the way that an autistic person might be

55
00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:25,480
Speaker 1: able to. You might have seen the movie rain Man,

56
00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:28,280
Speaker 1: where a box of matches drops on the floor or

57
00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:33,520
Speaker 1: something like that, and an autistic person, some with savant capabilities,

58
00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:36,800
Speaker 1: can look at it and immediately count how many matches

59
00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:39,320
Speaker 1: are there, a hundred or a hundred, fifty whatever. They

60
00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:43,960
Speaker 1: see the actual image of what's there and can count it.

61
00:03:44,400 --> 00:03:49,920
Speaker 1: So with transcranial magnetic stimulation, a normal person can start

62
00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:52,520
Speaker 1: to do something very similar to that in the same

63
00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:56,520
Speaker 1: way a normal person can go from memory and draw

64
00:03:56,600 --> 00:04:00,560
Speaker 1: a much more accurate picture of a horse, say, then

65
00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:04,119
Speaker 1: could be possible with the left side of the brain active.

66
00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:07,520
Speaker 1: If you think about it, this is really exciting research

67
00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:11,200
Speaker 1: because it means that the idea of a savant is

68
00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:15,880
Speaker 1: not unusual. Apparently we all have that stuff sitting inside

69
00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:19,839
Speaker 1: our brains, but it's being overshadowed by the symbolic processing

70
00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:24,320
Speaker 1: capabilities of the left hemisphere. If scientists can figure out

71
00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:27,960
Speaker 1: how to disable the left hemisphere for periods of time,

72
00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:32,400
Speaker 1: for example, transcarential magnetic stimulation, does that as just very

73
00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:34,799
Speaker 1: short acting. If they could come up with a pill

74
00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:38,200
Speaker 1: or a therapy of some kind that could turn off

75
00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:40,159
Speaker 1: the left side of the brain and allow you to

76
00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:43,440
Speaker 1: turn it back on later on, obviously, then it could

77
00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:46,560
Speaker 1: be that we could all tap into these savant capabilities

78
00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:50,720
Speaker 1: whenever we want to be sure to check out our

79
00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:54,279
Speaker 1: new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuppwork

80
00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:57,880
Speaker 1: Staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities

81
00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:02,600
Speaker 1: of tomorrow. The House stafforks iPhone app has arrived. Download

82
00:05:02,640 --> 00:05:04,680
Speaker 1: it today on iTunes, m