Through the brain changes from impairment affect people in negative ways the rewiring of the brain to fill the gaps can have certain advantages despite changing people’s perspective on reality. Should neurologists try to convince people there is an issue g with them when they don't believe there is “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” Oliver Sacks tells the story of his experience trying to understand a man with visual agnosia. This patient, Dr.P, could not see faces or scenes as a whole, but instead as individual pieces which his brain was unable to combine into an unified form. His inability to recognize or read what he once could (faces of his family, his foot, a glove, ect.) caused him little trouble while processing music. When he …show more content…
P started making art in a less realistic method and instead switched to a more abstract fashion. Upon noticing the progression of the change in art style, Sacks came to realize the change in artistic style is a direct result of his condition. Dr. P’s wife argued that the adjustment was in fact “artistic development” and not a side effect of his lack of connection to visual reality. Often times doctors try to diagnose people with mental disorders because they start expressing themselves in art differently than they once would. Sacks does a good job at understanding how the change in artistic style was a reflection of Dr. P’s mind, however, he insinuated that the paintings were a “tragic pathological exhibit.” In this case I tend to agree with Dr. P’s wife because I disagree that the state of one’s mind should tell you if what they created is art or not. I think art can be developed along with one's mind and the the degradation of one does not mean the same for the other. Seeing everything as a symptom or side effect denies the patient's autonomy. This connects back to the thesis because the impairment of a part of one’s mind means that they will rewire, adapt and in this case still be able to produce art whether it be visually or
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat is an informative book by Oliver Sacks which discusses a wide variety of neurological disorders of his patients. The book is divided into four sections which are Losses, Excesses, Transports, and The World of the Simple. Each section has its own theme and set of stories with different main character. There is no main character throughout the book except for the author who is Dr. Sacks sharing the stories and experiences of his patients. The theme of the section called Losses is the lack of function in the brain through a neurological disorder. Many people have neurologicasl diseases or disorders which causes them the inability of a function of the brain. Some examples which Sacks included were Aphonia,
The novel, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, is a neurological and psychological journal of Dr. Oliver Sacks’s patients. He describes each one of his patients illnesses into twenty-four short stories. These short stories are split into 4 parts: Losses, Excesses, Transports, and The World of the Simple.
The book “The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” as a book about different short stories about psychological disorders. One of the most eye catching things about this book I think is the title of the book, it’s very eye catching. Anyway back to the book, the book focuses on short stories about strange clinical stories about psychological disorders. The stories are not linear to each other, they are just little stories. Like Tourrettes, a women who hears music wherever she is, and a man who mistook his wife for a hat. In the rest of the paper I will go into deeper about certain parts of the book that took my interest.
The fourth chapter, “Music on the Brain: Imagery and Imagination,” covers imagery as it resides in individuals. Sacks brings up his own parents to demonstrate that not every person has equal potential to posses imagery. In this sense, he basically says his father did and his mother did not. But musicians and those skilled within the field, were very talented at this trait. He begins talking about composers and examines how they interpret music. Beethoven’s creative process is used as an example because he is deaf. Due to the fact that he was not able to experience external music, he was forced to be more abstract and use his imagination. Sacks personal relationship is best described as a gift that few are given. He is able to hear music play
Visual agnosia is a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize familiar objects (Farah, 1990). Object recognition is the ability to place an object in a category of meaning. Most cases of visual agnosia are brought about through cerebral vascular accidents or traumatic brain injury typically inhibiting sufficient amounts of oxygen from reaching vital body tissues (Zoltan, 1996). There are a vast array of impaired abilities and deficits associated with individuals diagnosed with visual agnosia. These impairments vary considerably from individual to individual (Farah, 1990). Some patients cannot recognize pictures of things such as trees and birds, despite being able to describe such objects or recognize them through other senses such as sound and touch. Other patients demonstrate an inability to recognize faces of friends and family members (Goodale, 1995). The functional impairments experienced as a r...
A 1949 study of 113 German artists, writers, architects, and composers was one of the first to undertake an extensive, in-depth investigation of both artists and their relatives. Although two-thirds of the 113 artists and writers were "psychically normal," there were more suicides and "insane and neurotic" individuals in the artistic group than could be expected in the general population, with the highest rates of psychiatric abnormality found in poets (50%) and musicians (38%). (1) Many other similar tests revealed th...
A narrative is constructed to elicit a particular response from its audience. In the form of a written story, authors use specific narrative strategies to position the ‘ideal reader’ to attain the intended understanding of the meanings in the text. Oliver Sacks’ short story The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an unusual short story because it does not display conventional plot development; the story does not contain conflict or resolution of conflict. The genre of the story is also difficult to define because it reads as an autobiographical account of an experience Sacks had with a patient while working as a neurologist. Although it is arguable that the narrative is a work of non-fiction, it is nevertheless a representation, distinct from a reflection of the real events. It is a construction, Sacks chose the elements that were included and omitted in the narrative and used narrative strategies to position readers to process the signs in the text and produce reach the dominant understanding. This blurring of truth and fiction is similar to that in the genre of ‘new journalism’. Although, rather than being a journalist writing a fictional piece of journalism, Sacks is a doctor writing a fictional medical analysis. To influence readers’ comprehension of the narrative, Sacks utilised the point of view strategy of subjective narration, atypical in this short story in that a characterisation or representation of Oliver Sacks is the narrator and Oliver Sacks the person is the real author. The story is character-driven rather than plot-driven and regardless of how accurate a depiction of the real people the characters are, they are constructions. Sacks gave the characters of Doctor P. and his namesake admirable and sympathetic trait...
For example, a study was done by, Cunningham, (2007), he believed that brain implicit attitudes operates through our unconscious emotion and that because the presentation of subliminal black faces activated our amygdala rather than white faces. The amygdala is known for its negative, and fearful sensitive, now it is also known for positive information after suffering from brain injury. Cunningham, (2007), have demonstrated that the amygdala depending on the perceiver might respond differently with processing affective intensity as opposed to various valence which cause the brain injury person to respond differently. Brain lesions have been linked by researchers and also brain lesions are related to cognitive deficits. The imagery of brain lesions were study in patients. The patient underwent surgery that served their right hemisphere from their left hemisphere. According to, (Sternberg, 2009), the right hemisphere appeared to represent visuospatial knowledge, whereas, the left hemisphere geared move toward symbol based knowledge. Moreover, the right hemisphere also represent being connected to the analogous to our physical environment as well. Nonetheless, the left hemisphere associates imaginal components along with symbols and to collect entirely new information entirely after undergoing brain
A person with visible disabilities can sometimes be treated differently than others. People may look down at them. They can be stared at, avoided, and ridiculed. Occasionally, a kind soul will step up and offer to help. How does this non-judgemental, helping viewpoint help the person?
The study of the relationship between the brain and music began in 1900’s, but wasn’t well-known as there was little studies done on the topic, however as years passed with greater advancements within technology and further in-depth studies, we have gained the ability to enhance our understanding on how the brain functions with music to enhance life. In Oliver Sacks’ novel, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat”, he displays his interest in different neurological diseases and how it has affected individuals within their lives in term of losses. Throughout the first part of the novel, Oliver Sack’s does studies on how neurological deficiencies damages causes lack of brain functions on behaviours and standards of living. This idea is further expanded and exemplified through Dr. Jim Davies of Carleton University, as he describes this concept through his PowerPoint on the connections of “learning and memory in representations of cognitive science” and how it affects an individual. In the case of Dr. P’s neurological disease, it displays how humans can use music to communicate
The narrator suggests later tells the readers that he is not able to see into Dr. P’s world, but rather see the results of what is going on in his mind (Sacks 716). In Dr. P’s state of his abstract visual impairment, it actually opens the narrators eyes. It opens his eyes to see that without proper perception, reason, logic, and sense, life cannot be lived to its’ fullest potential. Sacks includes in the story, Neurology and psychology, curiously, though they talk of everything else, almost never talk of
In the world of man, one would think everyone sees the world in the same way. That person would be greatly mistaken. The human brain is more complex than most can believe; some would say the brain is still a modern mystery. When it comes to psychology, the idea behind perception and cognition is usually through the psyche of a ‘normal’ individual. However, some argue that studying abnormal brains, or persons with brain disorders could help better understand perception and cognition. It is correct that unusual brains can perceive differently from a standard brain. These studies can only help the scientific field expand its understanding of the brain by encompassing all brains, including those suffering from disorders. In short, brain disorders
Early studies of this social stereotyping phenomenon were largely anecdotal, relying on the unconfirmed psychological diagnosis of creative individuals post-mortem. Examples of this include William Blake, Lord Byron, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson who were suspected to have had radical mood swings. Painters like Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Mingus, and Robert Schumann were similarly afflicted. Modern writers' mental states have also been studied with the aid of verifiable evidence. John Berryman, Randal Jarrell, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, and Anne Sexton were all hospitalized for mania or depression (Jamison, 1995). Jamison notes that "a high number of established artists- far more than can be expected by chance- meet the diagnostic criteria for manic depression or major depression...In fact, it seems that these diseases sometimes enhance or otherwise contribute to creativity in some people" (Jamison, 1995). It is not enough, however, to rely on frequency alone to support the link between creativity and mood disorders.
Works of art such as books, paintings, poems, and sculptures oftentimes are said to express the feelings, personalities, interests, and desires of their creator. One method for interpreting these details from books and other literary works is known as psychoanalytic literary analysis. This analysis seeks to identify the nature of relationships between characters as well as the author’s relationship with the characters. In the analyses the critic will discuss interactions between characters and with the author and often go so far as to make assertions about the author’s conscious and unconscious reasons for telling their story in the way they did. While psychoanalytic criticism is well accepted it is not without its own critics. At times it
It is not even the thought that really counts, cases like Stephen prove this. So then, how do we define an artist or art? It is merely the intent. To be visually literate means to use the visual world the is around “you” to create. Whether you are autistic, colorblind or “normal”.