The neural architecture of expert calendar calculation: A matter of strategy?

Neurocase

Volumn 17, Issue 4, 2011, Pages 360-371

  Fehr, Thorsten ^a,b   Wallace, Gregory L ^c   Erhard, Peter ^a   Herrmann, Manfred ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BREMEN   (Germany)

^b OTTO VON GUERICKE UNIVERSITY   (Germany)

^c KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Calculation; Complex cognition; Expertise; FMRI; Individual differences; Prodigies; Savants; Strategy

Indexed keywords

ADULT; ARTICLE; ASPERGER SYNDROME; ATTENTION; AUTISM; BEHAVIOR; BRAIN; BRAIN FUNCTION; BRAIN REGION; CALCULATION; CALENDAR CALCULATION; CASE REPORT; COGNITION; COGNITIVE DEFECT; FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING; HUMAN; INDIVIDUALITY; INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT; LEARNING; MALE; MEDICAL EXPERT; MEMORY; MENTAL FUNCTION; NERVE CELL; NERVE CELL NETWORK; NEUROIMAGING; NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST; PERCEPTION; RATING SCALE; SCREENING TEST; TASK PERFORMANCE;

ADULT; APTITUDE; ASPERGER SYNDROME; AUTISTIC DISORDER; BRAIN; BRAIN MAPPING; COGNITION; HUMANS; MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING; MALE; MATHEMATICS; MIDDLE AGED; QUESTIONNAIRES; TIME PERCEPTION;

EID: 79960710426     PISSN: 13554794     EISSN: 14653656     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13554794.2010.532135     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Achtziger, A., Fehr, T., Oettingen, G., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Rockstroh, B. (2009). Strategies of intention formation are reflected in continuous MEG activity. Social Neuroscience, 4, 11-27.
2. Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Skinner, R., Martin, J., & Clubley, E. (2001). The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ): Evidence from Asperger syndrome/highfunctioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31, 5-17.
3. Berument, S. K., Rutter, M., Lord, C., Pickles, A., & Bailey, A. (1999). Autism screening questionnaire: Diagnostic validity. British Journal of Psychiatry, 175, 444-451.
4. Boddaert, N., Barthélémy, C., Poline, J. B., Samson, Y., Brunelle, F., & Zilbovicius, M. (2005). Autism: Functional brain mapping of exceptional calendar capacity. British Journal of Psychiatry, 187, 83-86.
5. Burbaud, P., Camus, O., Guehl, D., Bioulac, B., Caille, J., & Allard, M. (2000). Influence of cognitive strategies on the pattern of cortical activation during mental subtraction. A functional imaging study in human subjects. Neuroscience Letters, 287, 76-80.
6. Cipolotti, L., Shallice, T., Chan, D., Fox, N., Scahill, R., Harrison, G., et al. (2001). Long-term retrograde amnesia the crucial role of the hippocampus. Neuropsychologia, 39, 151-172.
7. Cowan, R., & Frith, C. (2009). Do calendrical savants use calculation to answer date questions? A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences, 364, 1417-1424.
8. Dehaene, S., & Cohen, L. (1995). Towards an anatomical and functional model of number processing. Mathematical Cognition, 11, 83-120.
9. Dupont, S., Samson, Y., Van de Moortele, P. F., Samson, S., Poline, J. B., Adam, C., et al. (2001). Delayed verbal memory retrieval: A functional MRI study in epileptic patients with structural lesions of the left medial temporal lobe. Neuroimage, 14, 995-1003.
10. Fehr, T., Achtziger, A., Hinrichs, H., & Herrmann, M. (2003). Interindividual differences in oscillatory brain activity in higher cognitive functions-Methodological approaches in analyzing continuous MEG data. In I. Reinvang, M. W. Greenlee, & M. Herrmann (Eds.), The cognitive neuroscience of individual differences (pp. 101-120). Oldenburg, Germany: bis-Publishers.
11. Fehr, T., Code, C., & Herrmann, M. (2007). Common brain regions underlying different arithmetic operations as revealed by conjunct fMRI-BOLD activation. Brain Research, 1172, 93-102.
12. Fehr, T., Code, C., & Herrmann, M. (2008). Auditory task presentation reveals predominantly right hemispheric fMRI activation patterns during mental calculation. Neuroscience Letters, 431, 39-44.
13. Fehr, T., Weber, J., Willmes, K., & Herrmann, M. (2010) Neural correlates in exceptional mental arithmetic-About the neural architecture of prodigious skills. Neuropsychologia, 48, 1407-1416.
14. Feredoes, E., & Postle, B. R. (2007). Localisation of load sensitivity of working memory storage: Quantitatively and qualitatively discrepant results yielded by single-subject and group averaged approaches to fMRI group analysis. Neuroimage, 35, 881-903.
15. Friston, K. J. (2000). Experimental Design and Statistical Issues. In J. C. Mazziotta & A. W. Toga (Eds.). Brain Mapping: The disorders (pp. 33-58). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
16. Fuster, J. M. (2006). The cognit: A network model of cortical representation. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 60, 125-132.
17. Geday, J., Gjedde, A., Boldsen, A. S., & Kupers, R. (2003). Emotional valence modulates activity in the posterior fusiform gyrus and inferior medial prefrontal cortex in social perception. Neuroimage, 18, 675-684.
18. Goel, V., Gold, B., Kapur, S., & Houle, S. (1997). The seats of reason? An imaging study of deductive and inductive reasoning. Neuroreport, 8, 1305-1310.
19. Goel, V., Gold, B., Kapur, S., & Houle, S. (1998). Neuroanatomical correlates of human reasoning. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 293-302.
20. Goel, V., Buchel, C., Frith, C., & Dolan, R. (2000). Dissociation of mechanisms underlying syllogistic reasoning. Neuroimage, 12, 504-514.
21. Heaton, P., & Wallace, G. L. (2004). Annotation: The savant syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 899-911.
22. Heavey, L., Pring, L., & Hermelin, B. (1999). A date to remember: The nature of memory in savant calendrical calculators. Psychological Medicine, 29, 145-160.
23. Hermelin, B. (2001). Bright splinters of the mind: A personal story of research with autistic savants. London: Kingsley.
24. Hermelin, B., & O'Connor N. (1986). Idiot savant calendrical calculators: Rules and regularities. Psychological Medicine, 16, 885-893.
25. Hill, A. L. (1975). An investigation of calendar calculating by an idiot-savant. American Journal of Psychiatry, 132, 557-560.
26. Ho, E. D. F., Tsang, A. K. T., & Ho, D. Y. F. (1991). An investigation of the calendar calculation ability of a Chinese calendar savant. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 21, 315-327.
27. Horwitz, W. A., Kestenbaum, C., Person, E., & Jarvik, L. (1965). Identical twin-idiot savants'-calendar calculators. American Journal of Psychiatry, 121, 1075-1079.
28. Horwitz, W. A., Deming, W. E., & Winter, R. F. (1969). A further account of the idiot savant, experts with calendar. American Journal of Psychiatry, 126, 160-163.
29. Houdé, O., & Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. (2003). Neural foundations of logical and mathematical cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4, 507-514.
30. Howe, M. J. A. (1989). Fragments of genius: The strange feats of idiot savants. London: Routledge.
31. Howe, M. J. A., & Smith, J. (1988). Calendar calculating in 'idiots savants': How do they do it? British Journal of Psychology, 79, 371-386.
32. Kalbfleisch, M. L. (2004). Functional neural anatomy of talent. Anatomical Records, 277B, 21-36.
33. Kapur, N. (1996). Paradoxical functional facilitation in brain-behavior research: A critical review. Brain, 119, 1775-1790.
34. McClelland, J. L., McNaughton, B. L., & O'Reilly, R. C. (1995). Why there are complementary learning systems in the hippocampus and neocortex: Insights from the successes and failures of connectionist models of learning and memory. Psychological Review, 102, 419-457.
35. Mostofsky, S. H., Goldberg, M. C., Landa, R. J., & Denckla, M. B. (2000). Evidence for a deficit in procedural learning in children and adolescents with autism: implications for cerebellar contribution. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society: JINS, 6, 752-759. (doi:10.1017/S1355617700677020)
36. Mottron, L., Lemmens, K., Gagnon, L., & Seron, X. (2006). Non-algorithmic access to calendar Information in a calendar calculator with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36, 239-247.
37. Nadel, L., & Moscovitch, M. (2001). The hippocampal complex and long-term memory revisited. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5, 228-230.
38. Nichols, T., & Hayasaka, S. (2003). Controlling the familywise error rate in functional neuroimaging: A comparative review. Statistical Methods in Medical Research, 12, 419-446.
39. Nichols, T., Brett, M., Andersson, J., Wager, T., & Poline, J. B. (2005). Valid conjunction inference with the minimum statistic. Neuroimage, 25, 653-660.
40. Obler, L. K., & Fein, D. (1988). The exceptional brain: Neuropsychology of talent and special abilities. New York: Guilford.
41. Pesenti, M., Zago, L., Crivello, F., Mellet, E., Samson, D., Duroux, B., Seron, X., Mazoyer, B., & Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. (2001). Mental calculation in a prodigy is sustained by right prefrontal and medial temporal areas. Nature Neuroscience, 4, 103-107.
42. Regenbogen, C., Herrmann, M., & Fehr, T. (2010). The neural processing of voluntary completed, real and virtual violent and non-violent computer game scenarios displaying pre-defined actions in gamers and non-gamers. Social Neuroscience, 5, 221-240.
43. Reinvang, I., Greenlee, M. W., & Herrmann, M. (2003). The cognitive neuroscience of individual differences. Oldenburg, Germany: bis-Publishers.
44. Rimland, B. (1978). Savant capabilities of autistic children and their cognitive implications. In G. Serban (Ed.), Cognitive defects in the development of mental illness. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
45. Roberts, A. D. (1981). Case history of a so-called idiot savant. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 66, 259-265.
46. Rosen, A. M. (1981). Adult calendar calculators in a psychiatric OPD: A report of two cases and comparative analysis of abilities. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 11, 285-292.
47. Rubin, E. J., & Monaghan, S. (1965). Calendar calculation in a multiple-handicapped blind person. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 70, 478-85.
48. Smith, N., & Tsimpli, I. (1995). The mind of a savant: Language, learning and modularity. Oxford: Blackwell.
49. Snyder, A. (2009). Explaining and inducing savant skills: Privileged access to lower level, less-processed information. Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences, 364, 1399-1405.
50. Snyder, A. W., & Mitchell, D. J. (1999). Is integer arithmetic fundamental to mental processing? The mind's secret arithmetic. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 266, 587-592.
51. Treffert, D. A. (1988). The idiot savant. A review of the syndrome. American Journal of Psychiatry, 145, 563-572.
52. Treffert, D. A. (1989). Extraordinary people: Understanding savant syndrome. New York: Harper & Row.
53. Treffert, D. A. (2009). The savant syndrome: An extraordinary condition. A synopsis: Past, present, future. Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences, 364, 1351-1357.
54. Treffert, D. A., & Wallace, G. L. (2002). Islands of genius. Scientific American, 286, 76-85.
55. Turkeltaub, P. E., Flowers, D. L., Verbalis, A., Miranda, M., Gareau, L., & Eden, G. F. (2004). The neural basis of hyperlexic reading. An FMRI case study. Neuron, 41, 11-25.
56. Wallace, G. L. (2008). Neuropsychological studies of savant skills: Can they inform the neuroscience of giftedness? Roeper Review, 30, 229-246.
57. Wallace, G. L., Happé, F., & Giedd, J. N. (2009). A case study of a multiply-talented savant with an autism spectrum disorder: Neuropsychological functioning and brain morphometry. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Section B: Biological Sciences, 364, 1425-1432.
58. Young, R. L., & Nettlebeck, T. (1994). The 'intelligence' of calendrical calculators. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 99, 186-200.