Why did the absence of the corpus callosum in Kim Peek’s brain increase his memory capacity?
—A. Goze, via e-mail
Jeannine Stamatakis, instructor at Ohlone College and other colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area, responds: I met Kim Peek when he gave a presentation at Ohlone College in October 2009, just a few weeks before his passing. During the talk, Peek astonished my students by showcasing his remarkable talent for calendar calculations. Just from knowing my students’ birth dates, Peek was able to determine the day of the week they were born and could recall the front-page news that day.
Known as a mega savant or a “Kimputer,” Peek had one of the most impressive memories people have ever seen. Physicians who examined Peek discovered that he had damage to the cerebellum, a brain region that regulates attention and language, as well as emotional reactions, such as pleasure and fear.
Perhaps most notably, physicians found that Peek had no corpus callosum, the bundle of nerves that connects the brain’s right and left hemispheres. They speculated that the absence of this critical structure allowed Peek’s neurons to make new and unusual connections between his right and left hemispheres. These novel connections most likely explain his abnormal memory capacity.
According to Peek’s father, Peek could memorize every word in the books they read before he was two years old. Peek progressed to reading two pages simultaneously. Although how he did so remains a mystery, some have theorized he read the left page of a book with his left eye and the right page with his right eye.
Peek could soak up material in any subject and became an expert in history, sports trivia, geography and music. He memorized zip codes, area codes and phone books. He could tell if a musician was “off” by a few notes in an orchestra setting—and would even call them on it.
Peek’s unique abilities inspired the character Raymond Babbitt, played by Dustin Hoffman, in the 1988 movie Rain Man. To accurately portray Peek, Hoffman met him and other savants; however, unlike Peek, Babbitt was portrayed as having autism.
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10 Comments
Add CommentMindboggling, but I suppose normally the lack of corpus callosum would be a disadvantage?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI. e., that the brain's self-repair-system doesn't normally make us savant, more likely idiot (or unattractive enough), so as to keep the non-corpus callosum from breeding??
Are you suggesting that, in Kim's case, it wasn't a disadvantage. I'm sure that Kim and his father would have traded in these exceptional talents, given the chance. And I doubt that this type of condition is heritable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Peek progressed to reading two pages simultaneously. Although how he did so remains a mystery, some have theorized..." It seems that it would be fairly simple to test this, such as with a visual barrier between the pages. It would be hard to follow a story that relied on temporal continuity...perhaps it would work to scan lists or such.
From seeing a TV special some years ago, I remember him as a fine young man with a very supportive father.
No, not as an advantage overall, but photographic memory seems to me to be an advantage compared to normal memory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut what I am wondering, is Kim's condition just a very rare fluke, or are there other examples of extraordinary memory connected to not having a corpus callosum?
I see from this article, that the cost of not having the CC is usually behavioral difficulties!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=half-brained-schemes
It seems that our society values photographic memory more than it does logic and creativity. Kim Peek could remember an entire telephone book; Einstein could not even remember his own phone number. Who do you think a crowd would be most impressed with? Whose talents offer more to society?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoliticians, talking-heads, and salesmen are more toward Kim Peek's side of the intelligence spectrum. A soundbite goes into the ears and another memorized soundbite comes out the mouth.
Why are scientists and engineers so poorly paid (unless they give up their profession and become an executive)?
"No, not as an advantage overall, but photographic memory seems to me to be an advantage compared to normal memory."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's really not at all clear that this is the case. If your sole purpose in life were to memorize as much as possible, then you would be quite right. But, most people don't need (or even want) to memorize everything. To much information can be a bad thing, which makes the ability to forget unimportant information quite useful.
Put it this way: apart from being an interesting talent, how useful would it be to be able to recall the front page of the New York Times on September 30, 1965? Would reading two pages at a time really make you understand Shakespeare any better?
And this is not even mentioning the fact that a computer can access many times more information at a much faster rate than the human brain could ever how to achieve. In reality, human memory is utterly replaceable; it's creativity which is difficult to mimic artificially.
I do agree that photographic memory, without the capacity to use the memorized items in other ways as to impress an audience is not very useful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, at least I, in spite of the net, use loads of time to find again something I know I read/saw/heard sometime, but all I have is an indistinct memory of the general idea, not specific enough to enable me to easily find it! I would be quite happy to use that time for something more rewarding.
As for accessing information with a computer, I need quite a bit of information stored in my head to know which information I need, and, last but not least, to evaluate the information I receive, the net in general is not peer-reviewed.
My Saksham who is now 8 yr old can tell the day of week any date given to him since the age of 6 yrs. He can tell tables up to 30x30, remember the dates of even minor events as date of purchase of ice-cream, chocolate, visit of any place etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe mind boggles from too much clutter!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA Roman philosopher would say: CUI BONO?, meaning:
For whom is it of value?
MULTUM, NON MULTA, meaning,'much' is better than 'many'
Not seeing the wood for the trees is a specifically human disease.
As a 36 yr old woman with agenesis of the corpus callosum myslef, I can attestify to the photographic and extraodrdinary memory myslef and can remember 99% of what I read months ago:) ACC is very rare actually( sorry I do get confused with word finding) . I am happy to teach anyone who wants to know more about ACC.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ vagnry. Please don't reffer to it as a disadvantage:( I find that rather offending( my doctors treat me like an idiot and I am actually very intelligent) I had graduated on the B honor role and am currently an RN. I refuse to let a lack of a CC get me down, what i can't do i compensate for(like velcro shoes instead of tie ones) it is true it can greatly affect behavior and emotions( I can be quite aggressive at times without meaning to:( if you want to know what it's really like to live without a CC I invite you to email me @ gridsgretta@yahoo.com. I aim to spread knowledge of this rare birth defect. I am also a computer whiz and can fix most mechanical things as well as being quite artistic. I would not have my brain "fixed" even if they could.
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