Sunday, October 20, 2013

Why is this still happening?

Another big and fancy one-hundred-bucks-plus edited book by dozens of academics is coming onto the market soon. It appear that this book will include references by various authors to Daniel Tammet as a savant synaesthete that are apparently utterly lacking in scepticism, including a lengthy discussion of Tammet "DT" as the subject of serious case studies by Baron-Cohen and team. Why, why, why, why, why, why?

Spiller, Mary Jane and Jansari, Ashok S. Chapter 36: Synesthesia and savantism.
In:
Simner, Julia and Hubbard, Edward M. (editors) Oxford handbook of synesthesia. Oxford University Press, UK December 2013, USA February 12th 2014.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ESH7AAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

It is probably worth pointing out that one of the editors of this new book, Dr Ed Hubbard, did a lot to give Daniel Tammet scientific legitimacy and publicity within the world of neuroscience even before Baron-Cohen;s studies of Tammet were published:

Azoulai, Shai, Hubbard, Ed and Ramachandran, V. S. (2005) Does synesthesia contribute to mathematical savant skills? Proceedings of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. 12, 69. 2005 Abstract No. B173. April 2005 New York City.
http://postcog.ucd.ie/files/Azoulai_CNS05.pdf

https://sites.google.com/site/edhubbard/abstracts/azoulaicns2005
http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:ZDplXtmWJIMJ:scholar.google.com/+Azoulai+ramachandran+synesthesia&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

Hubbard, Edward M., Azoulai, Shai, Mulvenna, Catherine, Sanders, Dana and Ramachandran, V. S. (2005) The Impact of Synesthesia on Memory and Creativity. Presented October 29th 2005 at American Synesthesia Association Inc Fifth Annual National Conference University of Texas Houston Medical School October 28-30, 2005.
http://www.synesthesia.info/texas.html
http://www.artecitta.es/textos/Houston.pdf
https://sites.google.com/site/edhubbard/abstracts/hubbardasa2005

Hubbard, Edward M., Azoulai, Shai and Ramachandran, V. S. (2006) The impact of number-shape synesthesia in a savant’s memory. Scheduled to be presented on April 22nd 2006 at UK Synaesthesia Association Annual General Meeting and Conference, London, April 22nd – 23rd 2006.
http://www.uksynaesthesia.com/abstracts07.htm
https://sites.google.com/site/edhubbard/abstracts/hubbarduksa2006

Hubbard, Edward (2006) Synaesthesia and memory. UK Synaesthesia Association Newsletter. June 8th 2006 Volume 2 Issue 3 p.2.
http://www.uksynaesthesia.com/UKSA%20Newsletter%20Vol%202%20Iss%203.pdf
at

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:25 PM

    Why, why, why? Indeed.

    I really find this quite amazing that scientists are still reporting on this so uncritically. It might sort of make sense if the people involved had only seen the scientific papers and never read what Joshua Foer and you and other bloggers had written. But that's not the case - this is a book edited by Ed Hubbard, who is definitely familiar with Joshua Foer's critique (he's written about it on the Wikipedia discussion page accompanying the Daniel Tammet article).

    I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

    Tomas

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lili Marlene8:34 PM

    Good point Tomas! I'll have to go back and take a look at that discussion, if it is still there. In my experience Hubbard is the kind of boffin who will argue black and blue for the most widely accepted view among his colleagues in a scientific debate, even if it has more holes than a slab of swiss cheese.

    I searched the book (which still isn't published, so theoretically could change) thru Amazon and Google Books and it looks like Foer's book isn't cited or mentioned in it. I hate to sound paranoid, but I think as a group these researchers have made a decision to ignore Foer's book and my blog (and all of the memory sport people who know the truth). Did you notice that a piece co-authored by Baron-Cohen is a included? He is also the keynote speaker for an upcoming synaesthesia conference.

    Another thing that I find pretty amazing is that one of the 2 authors of the chapter that focuses on Tammet as 1 of 2 case studies of synesthetes with exceptional memory is also a major figure in the area of face recognition research - Ashok Jansari. When I think of all of the incredible inconsistencies that I've found and publicised regarding what has been claimed and written about Tammet and face memory, I'm so disappointed that Jansari, a face recognition researcher, apparently knows not a thing about this, or has chosen to disregard it all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lili Marlene7:15 PM

    It's worth pointing out that Ed Hubbard was helping to give Tammet scientific exposure and legitimacy even before Baron-Cohen's studies were published:

    Azoulai, Shai, Hubbard, Ed and Ramachandran, V. S. (2005) Does synesthesia contribute to mathematical savant skills? Proceedings of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. 12, 69. 2005 Abstract No. B173. April 2005 New York City.
    http://postcog.ucd.ie/files/Azoulai_CNS05.pdf
    https://sites.google.com/site/edhubbard/abstracts/azoulaicns2005
    http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:ZDplXtmWJIMJ:scholar.google.com/+Azoulai+ramachandran+synesthesia&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

    Hubbard, Edward M., Azoulai, Shai, Mulvenna, Catherine, Sanders, Dana and Ramachandran, V. S. (2005) The Impact of Synesthesia on Memory and Creativity. Presented October 29th 2005 at American Synesthesia Association Inc Fifth Annual National Conference University of Texas Houston Medical School October 28-30, 2005.
    http://www.synesthesia.info/texas.html
    http://www.artecitta.es/textos/Houston.pdf
    https://sites.google.com/site/edhubbard/abstracts/hubbardasa2005

    Hubbard, Edward M., Azoulai, Shai and Ramachandran, V. S. (2006) The impact of number-shape synesthesia in a savant’s memory. Scheduled to be presented on April 22nd 2006 at UK Synaesthesia Association Annual General Meeting and Conference, London, April 22nd – 23rd 2006.
    http://www.uksynaesthesia.com/abstracts07.htm
    https://sites.google.com/site/edhubbard/abstracts/hubbarduksa2006

    Hubbard, Edward (2006) Synaesthesia and memory. UK Synaesthesia Association Newsletter. June 8th 2006 Volume 2 Issue 3 p.2.
    http://www.uksynaesthesia.com/UKSA%20Newsletter%20Vol%202%20Iss%203.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous3:27 PM

    What do you make of the paper "Is synaesthesia related to autism?", from the esteemed Simon Baron-Cohen himself, "inspired" by Daniel Tammet. It also features the AQ and a citation from Darold Treffert. Definitely to be filed under "Why the hell is this still happening?".

    From my reading of the study, the main finding can be summarised as "they tested 31 people who they thought might have synaesthesia to see if their synaesthesia was genuine, but found that only 6 of them could be bothered the finish the test".

    Tomas

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lili Marlene8:26 PM

    Thanks for the tip Tomas. I could use a laugh.

    You can't stop the wind blowing and you can't stop Baron-Cohen from publishing failed theories, fundamentally flawed instruments and half-baked research. Did you know that he recently did another study which didn't support one of the autism-related theories that he is most famous for? I can't say it was one of his theories because it wasn't - the extreme male brain theory of Asperger syndrome was first proposed by Dr Hans Asperger, but that doesn't seem to be mentioned in this New Scientist article:
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24039-autism-may-make-brains-of-women-but-not-men-more-male.html#.Uqfhn8QW18E

    The fact that Baron-Cohen is still listed as the keynote speaker of the upcoming conference of the UK Synaesthesia conference http://uksynaesthesia.com/2014GOLD.html
    suggests to me that there must be serious issues within the UK community of synaesthesia researchers. This is another serious issue associated with UK synaesthesia researchers:
    http://superrecognizer.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/when-researchers-steal-your-ideas-i-guess-at-least-thats-some-form-of-validation/

    Did I mention that I've found some old material that contains an account of Tammet's synaesthesia that definitely conflicts with other accounts? I've got a growing file of more material to add to my Tammet book in a new edition, but I'm having trouble finding the time or the motivation to finish it and publicize it. Motivation, publicity and reviews are what I need right now. And money.

    ReplyDelete