Berit Brogaard and Kristian Marlow study people with astonishing talents—memory champions, human echolocators, musical virtuosos, math geniuses, and synesthetes who taste colors and hear faces. What these gifted individuals have in common is that through practice, injury, an innate brain disorder, or even more unusual circumstances, they have managed to gain a degree of conscious access to the potent processing power below our awareness. Delving into the neurological underpinnings of these abilities, the authors reveal how we can acquire some of them ourselves—from perfect pitch and lightning fast math skills to supercharged creativity.
Berit Brogaard, D.M.Sci., Ph.D., is a Professor of Philosophy and the Director of the Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research at the University of Miami. Her educational background includes a medical degree in neuroscience and a doctorate in philosophy. Her areas of research include perception, synesthesia, blindsight, consciousness, neuro-psychiatry and emotions. She has written over 100 peer-reviewed articles and some 400 popular articles on neuroscience and health issues. She is the author of On Romantic Love (Oxford) and Transient Truths (Oxford)
