Savant-Like Skills Exposed in Normal People by Suppressing the Left Fronto-Temporal Lobe

Abstract

The astonishing skills of savants have been suggested to be latent in everyone, but are not normally accessible without a rare form of brain impairment. We attempted to simulate such brain impairment in healthy people by directing low-frequency magnetic pulses into the left fronto-temporal lobe. Significant stylistic changes in drawing were facilitated by the magnetic pulses in four of our 11 participants. Some of these "facilitated" participants also displayed enhanced proofreading ability. Our conclusions are derived from 11 right-handed male university students, eight of whom underwent placebo stimulation. We examined performance before, during and after exposure to the stimulation.