THE MASTER MEMORIES OF SAVANTS

Whether people acquire savant syndrome or are born with it, they exhibit a range of astounding

skills. Most share one common thread: tremendous memory.

By Adam Piore Posted 03.11.2013 at 11:40 am 3 Comments

Pure Genius Paul Lachine and Graham Murdoch

KIM PEEK

The inspiration for Rain Man, Peek could read two pages of a book simultaneously (one with each eye) and

instantly commit them to memory. His recall of more than 12,000 books made him a walking encyclopedia. Peek,

who died in 2009, could also sum columns of numbers in the telephone book.

STEPHEN WILTSHIRE

Wiltshire, who is autistic, was drawing buildings by age 8. As an adult, he has created stunningly accurate

portraits of cities from memory. In 2007, he flew over the Thames for 15 minutes, then sketched seven square

miles of London’s streets, rivers, and buildings, precise down to the windows.

LESLIE LEMKE

Blind since birth, Lemke has a verbal IQ of 58. When he was 14, his family watched a movie featuring a

Tchaikovsky piano concerto. Hours later, his mother awoke to the music and discovered Lemke playing it. He

has performed around the globe and can reproduce thousands of songs from memory.

FLO AND KAY LYMAN

The identical-twin autistic savants can name the day of the week for any date, past or future. They also have

prodigious autobiographical memory and can recall what they had for dinner on any given night, what they were

wearing, what the weather was like, and what they did that day.

DANIEL TAMMET

Tammet can recite pi to 22,514 decimals, master a new language in one week’s time, and perform lightning-quick

calculations. Asked by one researcher to compute 37 to the power of 4 (answer: 1,874,161), he did so instantly.

He perceives numbers and days as having distinct colors and emotional tones.

JIM CAROLLO

An acquired savant, Carollo gained exceptional mathematic ability after recovering from a severe auto accident

at age 14. Just months later, he achieved a perfect score on a geometry mastery test without having studied. He

later passed calculus exams, though he’d never taken trigonometry.

Read our feature on savants from the March 2013 issue.

jefro03/11/13 at 5:06 pm

I am more of an optimist. I believe that we all have these abilities or the potential for them. It seems that these

people can more easily do such feats. Many of the best musicians can do things like "knowing" a song from

hearing it only once. In one case Chet Atkins was reported to have completed a song that he never heard. Les

Paul made statements that he knew a song the first time he heard it. I'd suspect that the brains ability to re-wire

to each task is the issue. Savants have the ability to re-wire their brains to such tasks.

Every time I see these feats by such people I am always amazed. Since you can see one person do it, you'd

think that any person on earth has the chance to do it also.