Friday, July 13, 2012

Some 2012 journal papers that cite Daniel Tammet uncritically as a case study


Rothen, Nicholas, Meier, Beat and Ward, Jamie (2012) Enhanced memory ability: Insights from synaesthesia.  Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. Received 19 February 2012. Revised 7 May 2012. Accepted 15 May 2012. Available online 23 May 2012.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763412000760
["In Press, Uncorrected Proof". Astonishingly the authors discuss Tammet as a savant synaesthete diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and also discuss Maguire et al's "routes to remembering" study with nothing to indicate an awareness that Tammet was one of the subjects in that study. Many inexplicably odd or wrong representations of the findings of studies can be found in this ambitious but disappointing paper. Two of the authors of this paper have apparently written a chapter titled “Synaesthesia and memory” for the upcoming academic book Oxford Handbook of Synaesthesia, which is a worry.]

Cottenceau, H., Roux S, Blanc R, Lenoir P, Bonnet-Brilhault F, Barthélémy C. (2012) Quality of life of adolescents with autism spectrum disorders: comparison to adolescents with diabetes. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2012 May;21(5):289-96. doi: 10.1007/s00787-012-0263-z. Epub 2012 Mar 1.

[French translations of Tammet’s two books listed as references]


Mercer, Sarah (2012) Dispelling the myth of the natural-born linguist. ELT Journal. (2012) 66 (1): 22-29.doi: 10.1093/elt/ccr022
http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/content/66/1/22.abstract
[Sadly, the author’s zeal for myth dispelling does not extend to the subjects of Daniel Tammet or savantism. Tammet is described as “a well-known savant”, his opinions on talent and savantism are recounted and his second book is listed in the references. K. Anders Ericsson’s work on expertise is discussed and Darold Treffert’s work on savantism is uncritically mentioned.]

No comments: