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Fascinating New York Times article titled "Savant for a Day" discusses autism, drawing detailed freehand pictures of cats and dogs, and becoming a temporary savant. Using a "transcranial magnetic stimulator," neuroscientist Allan Snyder causes ordinary people to take on temporary savant-like abilities, by letting them see the world in much the same way (Snyder says) as some autistic people:

''[On] the machine,'' [Snyder] says, ''you start seeing what's actually there, not what you think is there.''

There are other professionals in the field who say that it's very unlikely that TMS can have the effects Snyder is claiming, so who knows. The article is short on details in a couple of important areas: it doesn't talk about control groups (do people get better at drawing cats or dogs without the use of the TMS?), and it doesn't talk about the intriguing "after" label on the last of the drawings at the beginning of the article (the last one in the series, drawn after the TMS is turned off, is still a remarkable improvement over the first two attempts, which were drawn before using the TMS).

At any rate, this bit from the article reminded me obliquely of Ted's "Liking What You See: A Documentary":

[UCSF neurology professor] Bruce L. Miller ... is intrigued by Snyder's experiments.... But he points out that certain profound questions about artificially altered intelligence have not yet been answered. ''Do we really want these abilities?'' he asks. ''Wouldn't it change my idea of myself if I could suddenly paint amazing pictures?''

...

But could anyone really guess, in advance, how their lives might be affected by instant creativity, instant intelligence, instant happiness? Or by their disappearance, just as instantly, once the TMS is switched off?

Thanks to Aaron for the pointer.