An unhelpful synergy between trashy neuroscience and mediocre science journalism

This is a pop science magazine article about acquired savant syndrome and Jason Padgett, a case who appears to be very much modelled on the story of Daniel Tammet:

Treffert, Darold (2014) Accidental genius. Scientific American. August 2014. P.42-47.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tapping-your-inner-rain-man/

and this is a pop science magazine article about acquired savant syndrome and Derek Amato, a case who appears to be very much modelled on the story of Daniel Tammet:

Piore, Adam (2013) When Brain Damage Unlocks The Genius Within. Popular Science (website) February 19th 2013.

Piore, Adam (2013) The genius within. Popular Science. March 2013. Vol 282 Issue 3 p.46-53.

Both articles appear to describe this 2012 study by Alan Snyder and Richard Chi:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304394012003618

but it is disappointing that neither article gave a proper citation to the paper, so I can only guess.

It is worth noting that Snyder and Chi did a similar study that was published in 2011: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016655 

That study and associated excitable press commentary inspired an interesting article in the Guardian newspaper criticising the media hype and the study itself: http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2011/feb/16/thinking-caps-pseudoscience-neuroscience